


Back Where I Belong

by dee_thequeenbee



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Outlander AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-09-17 22:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9349430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dee_thequeenbee/pseuds/dee_thequeenbee





	1. The Veil of Time

\- 1 -

**The Veil of Time**

 

_My name is Regina Mills, and this is the story of how I died._

_Well, I didn’t really die. I disappeared._

_But when you disappear for years, that’s what your loved ones assume, that you’re dead. I don’t know how much time should pass before their hearts reach this conclusion. Some never stop believing you’re alive, in some way. Others have a point in time where they simply stop thinking you can come back to them._

_English and American laws declare a person dead after seven years from the disappearance. It’s called death_ in absentia _._

_Seven years are fast to pass, when you’re searching for someone._

.::.

Daniel is buying a newspaper and his usual cigarettes, when she comes back from the toilet. A worried frown is marring his features, as his eyes skim the first page. He doesn’t lift his eyes, hearing the familiar sound of her heels on the floor tiles, and that’s how she knows something is wrong.

“What’s up, babe?” she says, nearing him, placing her chin on his shoulder to read the news.

“Another terroristic attack,” he sighs. She can see the capital letters right in the middle of the page. This time, it was in Germany. She doesn’t manage to read much more, because he folds the _Times_ quickly, turning to kiss her cheek. “Shall we go, my love?”

The prospect of finally exiting the airport is very much appealing, and Regina nods, letting him take her hand and lead her away.

They take a cab – the usual black car they use here in London – she looks out of the window, observes the city slide next to her. London again, after all those years, London with her husband, just like last time. Daniel is tapping the newspaper on his legs, with a nervous rhythm that has her squeeze her eyes in annoyance.

It’s still early – not even eight in the morning, and the City seems to be still sleepy, even if it’s somehow buzzing with activity. But Regina is used to New York, and to Boston, and there’s something about European capitals that’s weirdly attractive.

She glances at her husband – he doesn’t notice, for he’s busy watching the Thames beside the road, and she feels a rush of affection for him – the way he’s observing the city, the way he’s always caring and attentive with her, the way he just gives her his love without asking for something in return. She loves him, of course. Even this irritating habit of tapping his fingers on the pages. She stares at the date – it’s almost 2017, almost Christmas, she has agreed to this trip because Daniel doesn’t get a furlough from the Army very often.

And honestly, the thought of spending Christmas with Mother is a horrible perspective.

She can almost hear her – Mother and her remarks about everything, from Regina’s appearances to her job, from her childless life to the fact she has married a soldier, who isn’t home for the largest part of the year. (Honestly, it’s almost like she’s single, at this point. Home, the hospital where she works, sometimes a few drinks with Kathryn.)  

She loves Daniel, she does. But sometimes she wonders, what does he do when he’s not with her?

.::.

Their hotel is fancier than she’s thought – they immediately put to good use the bed, because he starts kissing her as soon as they’re alone. He teases, at first, nibbling at her earlobe, sending shivers down her spine. He breathes a greedy _I love you_ against her skin, and Regina smiles – this is what she misses most, when he’s away – this is what Skype calls can’t give her, the connection, the intimacy.

The bed creaks when she pushes him above it, with a sly grin, and he undresses her with the care and love she’s fallen in love with years ago.

“Come here, darling,” he calls for her, always so gentle, and she complies, choosing to let go her worries, to get lost into him – she always has a bit of performance anxiety, because she knows what he wants. She knows he wants a son, she knows they’ve tried for years and she knows she doesn’t have problems in that sense, because she took a fertility test without telling him. But she couldn’t get him to try one for himself. _I don’t have any problem, babe_ , he has told her.

So she kisses him, and tries to let go, but letting go doesn’t come easy, when you’ve nowhere to go to.

.::.

“It’s just a few hours, Regina,” he says, fixing his tie in front of the mirror. “I’m all yours, after that.”

She’s sitting on the bed – tightens the knot of her bathrobe, bare feet dangling lazily. “Do you really _have_ to meet this guy today? At New Year’s Eve?”

“I promise, it will be quick – and we can meet at the restaurant after I’m done, say at… half past seven?”

“Okay,” she replies. She’s still annoyed by this meeting affair, but manages to muster a smile up for his sake, feels his beard scrub lightly on her cheek when he leans on to kiss it, and watches the door close after him.

Her day is slow and boring.

She gets dressed – a double-breasted coat, her favorite skirt, high heels and – yes, the weather of this town forces her to surrender to a warm sweater, gloves and scarf. Then, she leaves the hotel, thinking she can very well waste some money in a cab to get to the center.

The London Eye is not so fascinating for someone who fears heights, but a stroll along the Thames is a welcoming thought. She doesn’t feel like a tourist, though. They’re everywhere, taking pictures, smiling at their selfies, pointing at the Big Ben. She feels an outsider, a stranger. She feels separated from them, as if she’s watching them from the other side of a veil.

After a while, she gets bored again – it’s not like it’s so funny, to walk around all by yourself. So it’s time for a late lunch, and to go explore the unknown, characteristic little streets. Wandering, without a destination.

She buys some stuff – an elegant scarf for Kathryn, a mug with a printed English flag for Mother – _oh she’ll hate it_ , she thinks with a smirk. Tea shops, postcards, all of those touristic attractions, she skips them all. At six, she gets a message from Daniel.

_Hey, sweetheart, I don’t know if I can make it before nine. I’m sorry – you can go to the restaurant and start, if you want. Love you, xX_

She frowns, can’t help that little pang of delusion and hurt across her heart. She tells herself to get over it, to stop being so childish. She knows she always is his priority, after all – he gave her his word, before their marriage. _It’s you, always, my love. Before the Army, before everything and everyone_.

She wonders if he remembers.

Maybe it’s the message – maybe it’s her bruised heart, but something brings her to stop in front of the weird shop at the corner of the narrow alley. She wouldn’t have spared it a glance, but her head is pounding, her blood quickens its pace, when she passes near it. Her head turns, curiosity fills her mind.

There’s no sign above the entrance, and the window glass is dirty and dusty. It’s getting cold, outside – a weird, chilly wind has just begun to blow. Regina represses a shiver, and pushes the door, hearing a collection of bells jingle above her head. There’s nothing festive, nothing Christmassy, in this shop. It’s almost like time has stopped, here – at the time of witches and of the Inquisition. It’s so dark, she can’t quite grasp all the details.

There’s _something_ , here. Something that gives her a deep, primal _fear_. Fear of the unknown, maybe.

She takes a step – her heels make the wooden floor squeak. Her eyes try to take in the room, but it’s the smell she feels first. Herbs, and incense, and – liquor? Smoke?

It’s a strange sensation, as if her entire being is telling her to back out. She stops – before she can even move a muscle, she’s startled by a voice.

“Come in, please, dear.”

Everything in her mind is screaming _No, don’t go, turn back_. Everything rational is disagreeing with her legs walking towards the source of the voice – her rationality fades a little more at every step.

There’s a flouncy curtain, made of veils and pearls, which separates her from the voice – as if she’s hypnotized, she watches her own hand lift it, slowly.

“Come, don’t be shy. Let me look at you.”

The room is drowning in smoke – she can barely distinguish a figure, sitting at a table.  An old lady, grey curly hair, black dress. She looks like a witch.

The first word that crosses her mind is _cliché_. Everything is a cliché here, from the magical sphere with violet smoke swirling inside, at the middle of the table, to the mirrors hung to the walls, to the low candles everywhere. Even the ancient, instrumental music – pervading her soul.

“Sit.”

.::.

_Later in my life, I would have reasoned on why I kept following the old lady’s orders. I guess some things just have to happen, and there’s nothing rational, nothing that makes sense. Nothing of what we do can stop them from happening. Some of us are skeptical – me included – and will try to fight against their faith with every ounce of will they possess._

_I remember one detail. Before entering, I was fiddling with my wedding ring – the one Daniel has given to me all those years ago. I guess some small, hidden part of me knew that what I was about to do – it would have changed my world completely._

.::.

The witch has taken her hand; her old, wrinkled fingers running above her palm.

“A marriage, no children,” she starts, without looking at her in the eyes. Regina stays silent, without voicing the thoughts that are swimming in her mind. “But I see another marriage – and more children than you can possibly and humanly bear, my dear.

“I see desperation, wars, tears and loneliness.

“But if you’ll be able to grasp what’s good in your future, you can also have joy.”

Regina stares at the witch – nothing is even remotely possible or bound to happen, between her words. _This was a bad idea, a stupid idea_ , she scolds herself. She doesn’t even know how much this visit will cost her.

“You have an interesting hand, my dear. I see a great capacity of caring for others, but also a great potential for darkness, if it’s fed…”

Something jolts, inside of her – she retreats her hand, as if she’s been burnt.

“Let’s try with the tea leaves, shall we?”

Before she can even utter a word – no, she doesn’t want to _try with the tea leaves_ , thank you so much – the witch is rotating a tea cup in her hand, and overturning it above a small plate.

“Ah yes, the stranger,” she nods, her eyes shining. “Even if it’s more than one – or maybe it’s you, my dear.”

She inclines the cup, the leaves shift slightly. “The lion,” she declares. “A very rare figure, paired with the sun – oh, you’ll be very lucky, you know…”

“I don’t feel so lucky, in this moment,” Regina mutters. The witch doesn’t seem to have heard her – she has lost interest in the tea cup, and she’s getting up, her chair trembling when relieved from her weight.

“I have another way to see what the future holds for you,” she says, her back turned, searching for something inside an old cupboard. “I happen to think New Year’s Eve is a very good moment for… new beginnings, don’t you?”

When she finds what she’s searching for, she lets out a satisfied sound. It’s massive – but it looks frail, and elegant, and strong, all together. It’s a mirror, and it’s very different if compared to the cheaper imitations that shine from the walls.

The old lady finds a support – places it on the table, and Regina can see her reflection, confused in the haze of colorful smoke that surrounds her.

“This, truth be told, is something you shall do alone,” the witch says, with a final tone, and looks at her intently. “I’ll give you some time – good luck, Regina.”

Before she can ask how she knows her name – the witch is gone, and she’s there alone, in front of the mirror.

.::.

 _This is so stupid_ , she thinks.

She can see herself, and nothing more – she can see the fog in the room, the glowing candles, but she absolutely can’t see her future, or whatever it is that the witch wants her to see.

She keeps staring at her reflection, concentrating – even if every fiber of her being is telling her how stupid she is for believing to this, her hand lifts to touch the frame of the mirror.

“How does it work, hmm?” she murmurs, her finger tracing the silvery emblazonments. She blinks, trying to shake her head off the confusing mist. There’s a pull, an attraction that brings her closer to the mirror. Her face still is the only real thing she can see, but inside the mirror, the fog is rotating more quickly.

Her right hand is on the frame, but her left hand goes up to trace the other half.

Her eyes widen slowly, in the mirror, when she lifts her fingers from the frame, and keeps them suspended in the air.

 _Don’t be stupid, it’s just a mirror_ , she thinks. But there’s a voice, or a feeling, inside of her – it says that if she touches it, something will happen. Her heartbeat fastens – her fingers near the glistening surface, slowly.

She stops just shy of brushing it – her eyes fixated on her fingers – then, she takes a deep breath, and finally makes contact.

.

It’s light, darkness, and flashes of light, and black spots.

.

The world starts spinning, her insides start screaming – and she closes her eyes, falling, falling down – it’s not the shop’s floor that meets her after a second, as she expects, but the fall continues – it’s cold, and hot, and painful, it’s her limbs being teared apart from all angles, it’s her head cracking open and her finger burning, but she doesn’t let go.

.

She falls, and sees her life pass backwards in front of her eyes.

Not once she stops screaming.

.

Until she does.

 


	2. Through The Looking Glass

\- 2 -

**Through The Looking Glass**

 

_When I was young – I couldn’t have been older than seven or eight – I fell into a frozen lake. I was ice skating with Daddy – I still see my shining white skates, new and perfect. The lessons Mother had forced me to take were finally paying off, when I  set foot on the lake. We were sure it was safe – I still think it was, because Daddy had told me to stay with the other kids. But I was a little rebel, and I had to explore a corner, a small strip of frozen water beside a tall tree._

_It happened so fast – a cracking sound, horrifying, followed by the sensation of freezing and dying all together. It was so cold it was almost hot, my brain was burning._

_That is the closest memory I have to describe what happened, while I went through the mirror._

_And it’s not even remotely useful. How can you describe a travel through time and space without the words absolute pain?_

.::.

Nausea.

That’s the first feeling she registers when she regain consciousness of herself.

She knows she’s lying on the floor – and she’s cold, everything hurts, her head pulses as if it’s about to explode. Her eyes are still closed; she tries to dominate the waves of dizziness washing over her.

She tries to lift a hand, and it feels so heavy, a titanic effort; she tries to blink, but it’s so bright – her eyes are stabbed by the light, but she starts to hear voices around her.

One of them is louder.

“Ma’am?”

Everything is blurry, when she tries again to open her eyes. It hurts like hell – she’s probably fell on her ankle, because it stings, it sends regular stabs of pain up to her leg and then to her brain.

“Can you hear me?”

The voice again – it’s kind, and it sounds worried, because she’s not responding. She tries, though, with a raspy _Mmm_ , tries to lift her head, but a warm hand touches her shoulder.

“Woah, easy,” he says – she’s quite sure he’s a _he_ , if only she could distinguish something more than shadows. “Do you think you can get up?”

“ _Mm_ -where –” Regina speaks, the words all tangled in her mouth, “– where am I?”

The man pauses, doesn’t answer right away, and the pressure on her shoulder tightens for a second. Then, he tells her. “Tottenham Court Road, ma’am. London Underground.”

She feels a sudden relief – she wonders why – she’s still in London, but her last memory… Daniel, the witch, the tea leaves – the _mirror_ –

“I have – I have to go,” she exhales, and tries to get up. His hand shifts, hooking her arm to help her up, and finally she can see, even if her senses aren’t fully recovered yet. The man is right behind her, carrying a good portion of her weight, so she can’t see his face. But he’s strong, and he lifts her easily.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, once she’s – more or less – on her feet. The heels are not helping at all; in fact, they’re contributing to a vertiginous increasing of her dizziness.   
_Her ankle_. Her ankle is definitely twisted, and she shifts her weight to the other foot.

She finally turns towards the man. He’s still watching her: he seems… concerned, in some way. His blue eyes are scanning her face, until they stop at some point on her forehead. She sees his hand lift, and flinches in reaction.

He immediately stops, but points at the crown of her head. “You have… I think you hit your head,” he explains. Once her fingers touch the bump she can feel there, she gets what he means – it’s blood, the thick substance dripping in her hair.

And hell, she’s a doctor. She is used to see blood. She is a _surgeon_. Blood doesn’t represent a problem in her life, not in the slightest.

Except it does, now, apparently.

Another stupid, unwelcomed wave of nausea overcomes her, and she finds herself stumbling ahead, immediately caught by his hands.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he tells her, his hands rubbing lightly her forearms.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she dismisses quickly – aware of the clear lies in her voice, because she isn’t – and yet, doesn’t let go of his arm, but grips him tighter. “I’m sorry, you – who are you?”

He smiles at her – the first, true smile she’s seen today, and she can’t help but feel the smile warming her heart. After his smile, everything happens in slow motion. She sees him open his mouth to answer, “Oh, I’m –”

But she never hears his name, because his voice is covered by the loudest sound she’s ever heard. And suddenly, the world spins on its axes, she’s hit by a flow of hot air, and everything turns black.

.::.

_When I was at college, I’ve discovered there’s a bomb called with my name – the Mills bomb. I did my research, and found out it was invented by a William Mills, in 1915. It was a grenade, used for a defensive aim, with a 15 meters radius. The fragments, however, had a more lethal area of explosion._

_So, it was small, quick and effective. I was somehow fascinated by the idea, because everyone is capable of being fascinated by war – when you’re sitting at your desk, maybe with a cozy blanket around your shoulders. When you’re safe._

_It was difficult to imagine, the damage a tiny fragment can make._

.::.

Regina is dreaming.

She’s dreaming since forever, lost in the sea of her memories.

.

Daniel’s laughter resounds in her ears. They’re on the beach, near the ocean, watching the foamy waves that bring shells at their feet.

She’s riding her horse, she’s eighteen – the wind caresses her face, her braid bouncing on her back, following the rhythm of the gallop.

She’s sliding across the aisle, Daddy’s arm steady under hers, her white dress shining of pearls and new beginnings.

Her bed resounds of a repeated noise, the start of a concert, a tale of loving moans, a whispered _Yes_ , sweaty skin, loud caresses.

.

Blue eyes.

.

Voices. She cannot understand the words, but they murmur and scream in a whirlwind of chaos, they say her name, they ask her for actions she doesn’t have the strength to accomplish, _Wake up, Regina_ – _save me, Regina, please_ – _open your eyes, I know you can hear me_ – _please, don’t leave me_ – _come back, Regina, come back to me_ –

_No_ , she thinks. _Leave me here, it hurts too much…_

_You can’t stay here, Regina_ , the voice reasons. _You have got work to do, come on_.

_No_ , she says. She can hear tears in her voice. _I wanna go home_.

She knows she sounds like a child. She doesn’t care.

.

She _sees_ a child. It’s a baby – and she knows, somehow, it’s a girl. She has blue eyes. Her chubby cheeks tremble, when she smiles at her – gurgling sounds, with a tiny bubble forming and popping at the corner of her lips.

_Oh, you’re so beautiful_ , she coos. _Look at you_.

.

She hears a voice, again. It’s clearer than those created by her mind. She can’t get the words, but it’s soft, and lulling, and gentle. It feels like safety. It feels like family.

.::.

There’s something warm in her hand.

She focuses on this simple statement, trying to ignore her other limbs. Trying to erase every other part of her body. She tightens her grip on the warmth, just a little, just a light squeeze.

Evidently, her hearing still works, because there’s someone who simply _gasps_ , next to her – and it’s loud, and she’s relieved, at least she hears – now, she just has to find out what happened, what she has lost, where she is –

“You’re _awake_ ,” the voice says, with an amazed quality she’s never heard before. The warmth in her hand moves away – leaving her – _no, come back_ , she thinks, feeling as if she has lost something valuable.

“Wait – I’ll tell the others,” the voice says, excited, then she hears footsteps going away, but still, she doesn’t open her eyes.

She waits. One minute or one year, she doesn’t know. She stands still, doesn’t move a single muscle, because she has yet to inspect the damage. She waits, and she hopes. Her dreams have become a confused fog, now, a previous life, distant memories.

“Look at that,” the voice has returned, accompanied by more footsteps – that stop just next to her. “She’s awake! I was reading to her and she’s awake, I told you!”

It’s a boy – young, she thinks, his words full of excited wonder.

“She doesn’t seem very awake to me,” another voice says – oh, wait, she _knows_ this voice, she has already heard it – hours ago, or in another life?

“I swear, she is,” the boy insists. “She squeezed my hand!”

A pause, then she feels warmth around her fingers again. It’s different, though – the one from before was clean and small, this one is warmer, steady, and she just knows it’s _his_ hand, it comes from the voice she already knew.

“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

All of her strength goes to her fingers, like a fluid, and she manages to squeeze again. The hand responds – it reciprocates her squeeze, and she hears a relieved sigh.

“You were right, Henry, she’s awake.”

“Yes!” the boy exclaims – Regina thinks he’s very likely to have thrown his fist up in the air.

But the voice – not Henry’s, the other one – is speaking again. “Can you open your eyes?”

Oh well, this sounds like too much of an effort. Instead, she parts her lips, lets out a faint _Mmm_ , and hopes it’s enough. Because when she tries to blink, it’s like her eyelids have been sewn together. The voices wait, they wait for her, until she’s ready to try again, and this time she manages – once, twice, she blinks, the world is a daze, but its outlines are becoming clearer and clearer.

She’s lying somewhere, probably on a bed. Blue eyes are scrutinizing her.

“Hello again,” the man says, flashing a smile towards her.

The corner of her lips tug up, before she can control them. There’s _something_ , in being welcomed in this way, which makes her heart swell pleasantly.

“Hi,” she murmurs, not without difficulty, recognizing him – the man in the Underground, the man who was with her before… _before?_  “What – what happened?” she lets out – her voice is horrible, like a croak, she tries to clear her throat – her insides burn in the motion, that little lift of the shoulders that comes with a cough – it sends her back on the pillow, breathing heavily for the pain.

“Henry, go grab her some water, please,” the man says in a rushed whisper. She has closed her eyes again, and only then she realizes the man has yet to leave her hand.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” he assures her. “There’s no need for you to talk, I’ll explain everything.”

She wants to nod, but she recalls the blood in her hair, the probable head commotion, and maybe it’s better if she stays still. Henry is back, after a short time – she opens her eyes to see him holding a cup, the water on the inside looks like a little paradise on Earth.

The man’s hand is warm under her head, when he lifts her gently to make her drink. And it feels nice, she feels better, her _Thank you_ is clear and louder.

She’s back on the pillow, and waits, as the man tells Henry something about _Go help in the kitchen, please, I need a moment alone with the lady_ – hears the boy’s protests, immediately dulled by assurances that sound like _You’ve been very good, lad, and you can come back in a short time, I promise_.

The boy finally complies, leaning in to squeeze her hand again. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he tells her, with an earnest smile. She smiles back, and watches him exit.

The man is sitting next to her – he has left her hand, to help her drink, but he hasn’t taken it again, she realizes with a sting of sadness.

“So, you must have some questions,” he starts, “and so do I, but for now let me explain, alright?”

She doesn’t reply, but her silence is, apparently, enough, because he starts talking. “You were quite seriously wounded by a bomb they placed in the Underground, three days ago. We don’t have a proper doctor, here, but our Mrs. Lucas was a nurse, and she removed the fragments from your skin, but the impact with the ground broke your arm – it’s not a severe injury, but you should keep it from moving for at least a month…”

Regina stays silent, because nothing of what he’s saying makes sense. _They don’t have a doctor? A bomb? Fragments?_ A real bomb would have killed her on the spot…

“…and you hit your head, so it’s bed rest until new orders,” he continues. “How are you feeling?”

She keeps her eyes on him – he sounds so certain of what he’s saying, and she’s… amazed, and confused – she doesn’t realize he’s expecting an answer.

“I, uh, I – feel better,” she says. “Look, I should really go –”

She has not even motioned half the movement to get up, when his hand stops her. “Where on hell do you think you’re going?”

“I have to go, my – they’re probably looking for me –”

His expression changes. What was concerned and sympathetic just some seconds before, it has now become suspicious. “Who’s looking for you? Are you a Nazi spy? A Jew refugee?”

_A… what?_

Regina shakes her head – regrets it immediately, though, it was not one of her best ideas – and jerks weakly against his hand. “What… what are you talking about?”

He tilts his head, frowning. “Are you serious?”

She doesn’t answer, too confused to reply. “Anyway, who are you? Where am I? And… you said I’ve slept three days?”

He takes a breath, evidently renouncing to get some sensate answers from her. “I’m Robin Locksley, ma’am, and you’re currently occupying one of the beds inside the infirmary of Sherwood Orphanage, London,” he says coldly. “And yes, you slept three days.”

And then he pronounces the words that have her world spin and her heart stopping.

“So, just to keep you updated, today’s the 7th of February, 1939.”


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole

\- 3 -

**Down the Rabbit Hole**

 

_I've never loved history too much, at school. I mean, I enjoyed studying it – it was a welcomed break from literature and that kind of romantic-and-nebulous stuff, but my heart belonged to the sciences. Thankfully, I thought, I've always had a pretty good memory when it comes to the dates. (You have to have a good memory, with all the equations you learn in math and physics, and I think dates are the one and only rational grasp you have, while studying history.)_

_But I was far, far away from the vast and admirable knowledge my professor had, the kind of knowledge born out of curiosity._

_And I really wished to have studied history a bit more._

_Because in that moment, it was a matter of life. Of survival._

.::.

"W-what?"

The words come out of her mouth like a choked sob.

The man – _Robin_ – stares at her, and she a million thoughts rush through her mind. This is not the right time to betray herself – even in the foggy aftermath of her head injury, one thing is particularly clear: she has to act.

She clears her throat, the coughing scratches painfully her insides. "I, ahem, I mean, what do you mean?"

He stays silent. She knows he's trying to read her, and it's dangerous. The number _1939_ is flashing in her brain, and her breath falls short, she doesn't feel able to concentrate on anything else. Especially not on an interrogatory.

_Oh my god. This can't be_.

She _has_ to be dreaming.

But the pain – the pain is so very _real_ , and so is the man.

"I mean," he finally speaks, "I mean you've slept three days, as I told you at least twice – and that's quite common, considering the fair share of traumas you endured."

_Oh you can bet,_ she thinks.

Then, she tries to shift the subject. Deflects it to a safer ground, a ground where they can play even. "How come you're not injured? You were there with me."

"Oh, I am," he assures, and only now she does notice his arm – he has a bandage, around the forearm, held tight with a knot – "I was luckier than you, that's for sure."

Regina narrows her eyes, aware of the fact she shouldn't push it, but she doesn't resist. "So much for being a gentleman," she snorts.

He seems to be hurt by her words – she can tell, and it's amazing how easy it is to read him. Anyway, he keeps it on a light note. "You wound me, _milady_. I'd have thought that carrying you all the way here could be, in fact, called gentlemanly enough."

She lifts her eyebrows, somehow impressed. Yes, she's not so heavy, but he was injured too, and she basically was a dead weight. She lowers her tone. "Well… thank you," she mutters. He half-smiles, and she wants nothing more than wiping that smug grin from his lips.

"I'd like to call that civil duty," he replies.

"Yeah, anyway," she fiddles with the blanket, to keep herself grounded to their discourse. "You didn't have to… host a complete stranger… just because of civil duty."

He has a weird look – she mentally kicks herself for bringing the stranger subject up. And in fact, as expected…

"You haven't told me your name yet," he states.  
Oh, this is not good. She has to make a story up, first, she can't just… but maybe, just her name, it can't hurt…

"Regina," she says, after a moment of hesitation. She hopes the moment wasn't too long, because he has already started doubting her, and she'd rather have him think she's telling the truth. "Regina Mills," she adds, choosing her maiden name instead of Colter. An instantaneous, immediate pang of guilt makes her heart burn. _I'm sorry, Daniel_ , she thinks.

Thinking of Daniel sends her again into that spiral of panic she's been avoiding until now. _He must be so worried_ , she thinks. _He must already be searching for me…_

"Regina," Robin repeats, as if he's tasting the word on his tongue. "Well, nice to meet you, then, Regina." She watches as he lifts from his chair, slowly – notices he must be hurting, and not only on his arm. "I'll let you rest," he says. "I'll tell Henry to come by later, if you feel like it."

"Thank you," she says. "I'd appreciate it." He nods, and walks to the door. She can't hold back, and calls him again. "Robin –"

He turns, a question in his eyes. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

"You just said it," he smiles. She decides she likes that smile.

"I mean… for this, for helping me," the words exit a bit shyly, but he nods again.

"You're welcome," he says, his smile doesn't falter. And he goes.

And with that, she's alone.

.::.

She tries with all her strength not to sleep, because she absolutely, desperately needs to conjure a story. Her brain swirls with headache, when she starts thinking. Thing is, her thoughts drift far away from the possible excuses she could feed her hosts with, and go straight where they shouldn't.

_How do I know he's telling the truth?_ she thinks in a flash of awareness. _He could be lying, he could be…_

_But then why helping me, why bringing me here?_

In the end, she decides to keep playing along with this 1939 thing, until she can grab a newspaper and see for herself if it's true.

Her body still aches, so even though she wants to stay awake, her mind succumbs to sleep so easily she doesn't even realize. Until a loud voice wakes her – she jolts, startled, and looks for the source of the noise. It's Henry, and he's almost sheepish, when he sees he has waked her.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, apologetic, until she offers him a smile and a shook of her head (only a little, because it's still pounding terribly).

"Don't worry, it's fine," she says. "How are you, Henry?"

The boy's face lightens up, and comes to sit next to her bed. He seems hesitant, but she's wearing an expression she hopes it's inviting enough for him to talk. He's kind, he asks her how does she feels, if she likes it there – as if she's seen something more than the room she's in – and he tells her about the Orphanage.

He doesn't ask questions. Thank God.

Regina listens to him, feeling herself become more relaxed by every minute, because it's the first moment she can just _be_ , and forget for a little her current situations. Henry is a good story teller – he speaks calmly, and this rhythm sounds familiar: she realizes he was, in fact, the one reading to her before she woke up for the first time.

When she asks about it, he shows her his book – the cover is made of leather, the words _Once Upon A Time_ printed in golden letters.

"It was my mom's," he says, a hint of sadness in his voice.

She's afraid to ask, but she does anyway. "Was?"

"Yeah," he answers, his fingers tracing the letters on the cover. "She died two years ago, and my dad too. Car crash."

Regina's heart clenches, as if there's a fist tightening around it. "I'm sorry, honey…"

"It's okay," Henry says, addressing her a sad smile. "It's not too bad, here. Even if I miss them, sometimes," he ends. She exchanges the smile – she thinks she admires him, so bright and hopeful even if he's… alone. It takes one word, _alone_ , to make her heartbeat race again. And she decides to shift the topic – he looks on the edge of being upset, and it's time to give him some space and stop prying.

"What were you reading before I woke up?"

He opens the book and turns some pages, stopping after a while. "I was reading a story about a girl who falls into a Rabbit Hole…"

"Alice?"

"You know about it?" he says, his head snapping up excitedly.

"Sweetheart, everyone knows about it," Regina laughs. "And which part of the story were you reading?"

"I was at the end," he tells her. "When she goes back home."

_Back home. If there was a way to get back home…_ "But then she returns there, right? In Wonderland?"

"Yeah, through the looking glass," Henry confirms. "I think she belongs in Wonderland, after all. It's where she fits best, even if she misses England."

"I guess," Regina answers, pensive. "Well, thank you for waking me up, Henry."

He flips the page, and reaches out for her hand.

.::.

The lady who brings her food and helps her with the toilet is around eighty years old and introduces herself as Mrs. Lucas. She's quick and effective, and while Regina fights with dizziness to stand up straight, she tells her about random things, a monologue Regina doesn't follow entirely.

Mrs. Lucas gives her new clothes – it's a simple dress, long to her knee, with a pair of flat boots; but she doesn't wear them just yet, because she should rest in bed until they're sure her head commotion hasn't caused any permanent damage.

"How long until I can get up for good?" Regina asks. Mrs. Lucas tuts disapprovingly, and motions towards the bed.

"Maybe tomorrow morning, you seem to be healing quite well," she says, checking her hair and the bruise. She's explained her that she has cleaned up the wound, and patched it. Her arm, though, is another story.

"For that, it will be at least a month of cast," she points at it, and Regina already knows, but she's not ready to talk about being a doctor _herself_ yet. She takes her medicine – it tastes like hell, and she honestly doesn't want to know what's into it. But Mrs. Lucas looks like she's ready to shove it down her throat, if she doesn't comply.

Her first dinner is some kind of meat, and smashed potatoes. She manages some bites before feeling the bile rise up. She pushes the plate aside, and falls down on the pillow. Mrs. Lucas shakes her head, but doesn't say a word.

And finally, she's alone, and she can sleep.

.::.

_When I woke up, the following day, I waited for a moment, before opening my eyes. I was in that stage of sleep between slumber and wake, and some part of my memory knew something was wrong. It happens quite frequently, I believe. When we're in situations of distress, we surrender to sleep and we erase the cause of said distress, until we wake up – but for a moment, a blessed moment, we don't remember what's wrong._

_And then, the world falls around us again._

.::.

"Up and about, girl," Mrs. Lucas says, at the dawn of next morning. "You'll most likely feel some discomfort at your arm, and I've bandaged your ankle that had an ugly bruise on it, but you should be fine. If you feel a headache, you tell me immediately."

Regina wants to point out that, for the modern medicine's standards, it's a bit early to let up from their bed someone who's had a head commotion, but she guesses that when you were a nurse during the First World War, standards change a bit. So she gets up, and she lets Mrs. Lucas help her with a bath. Indoor plumbing is only partially present, with sinks and a primitive version of the WC, but the bathtub is still entirely manual.

Mrs. Lucas lets her dress in peace – she says she's going downstairs to start breakfast, so Regina calculates she has about twenty minutes of privacy before she has to get downstairs as well.

And that's where she breaks.

Thankfully, the door closes from the inside too, so she can lock herself in. She sits on the edge of the bed, still enveloped in her towel, and cries for the first time in four days. It's not desperation – she hasn't given up the thought of going home yet, after all. She cries for the shock, for the lingering pain, for the fact she's either in 1939 or Robin has lied so blatantly at her face. She keeps the sobs quiet, her shoulders shaking.

It lasts no more than five minutes – she feels better, afterwards, she feels like she can get through this day. First aim is to get her hands on a newspaper. Then, if Robin has told the truth, she can think about how she's going to reach home.

She doesn't have a plan, yet. But it's something.

.::.

When she exits the room, the absence of noises leaves her startled. She remembers it's just past dawn, when she sees the sun glimmer through a window of the corridor. The stairs are just in front of the infirmary – when she gets out, she grips the banister – the staircase is narrow, and she'd rather avoid falling like an idiot.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee guides her into the kitchen. There's Mrs. Lucas, busy around pots and pans, and Robin sitting at the table, a concerned frown painted on his face. A face that lifts up when she enters, the beginning of a smile turning quickly in a sort of grimace.

She lingers, hesitant, but he quickly schools his features into something pleasant. It all lasted no more than a second, but she can't help feeling… unwanted. Mistrusted.

"Regina," he says, motioning towards a chair with his chin. "How are you doing today?"

She nears the table, pushing aside the chair with her good arm. "Sore. Better," she answers earnestly. Well, she is sore – who knew trying to wear a dress from the Thirties was such an ordeal – but at least she doesn't feel like she's been run over by a train anymore.

"I'm glad," he answers, and for a second it's like he wants to reach for her hand, but he doesn't. They fall into an embarrassing silence, until Mrs. Lucas starts placing plates in front of them.

"Eat up. All of it," she tells her sternly. "And you, remember you have that… meeting, later today," she tells Robin. Regina starts eating with her left, feeling clumsy – thank god it's just eggs, she wouldn't have managed a knife. After one or two forkfuls, her gaze falls on the newspaper placed next to Robin's plate.

"Can I have it for a moment?" she asks, and he slides it towards her, still avoiding her gaze.

She ignores the title splayed across the first page, because her eyes go directly to the first lines – she searches frantically for the date, and it's there.

_Wednesday, 8_ _th_ _of February 1939._

Her fork falls with a clang.


	4. Journey to the Past

\- 4 - 

**Journey to the Past**

 

“Are you alright?”

Robin has apparently decided to break the silent treatment he’s reserving her – god knows why – and it’s the worst moment possible. Why does he always have to _be there_ while her world crumbles around her?

“Yes,” she cuts short. She’s shocked, and _now_ she believes, now she fully believes she’s away from home, separated from her husband by a gap of… _78 years_ – _78 years_ , Jesus Christ, not even Mother is born yet – and it’s February and the United Kingdom is going to declare war in September…

“Your hand is trembling,” he observes, and she looks down. Her hand has tightened around the newspaper as if it’s the only thing anchoring her to life.

“I’m fine,” she mutters through her teeth. _Shit, shit, shit_. She needs to get a grip, or he’ll definitely understand something is wrong.

“If you say so,” he says, but she still feels his puzzled gaze upon her. He gets up, eventually, and talks quickly with Mrs. Lucas – something about him _going to MadameDe Beaufort’s house to talk about the children_ , and _find her new clothes, for god’s sake, you shouldn’t have_.

When he leaves, Regina is still looking at the page, those numbers in black ink are staring at her, mocking her, and Mrs. Lucas shakes her from her fantasies with a light touch of her forearm. “Come on, girl, we’ve got work to do.”

.::.

She spends the morning helping out in the kitchen, like a robot, following Mrs. Lucas’ instructions. The children come to breakfast like a pack of hungry wolves – they’re all curious about _Miss Regina_ , but Henry has got some authority from being one of the eldest, and tells them to be quiet, that she’s still recovering and they don’t need to harass her.

There’s a dozen of kids there, and she realizes their number will grow in the following months, when the war begins.

Mrs. Lucas re-enters the room with a coat, and helps her wear it – once they’re done, the ordeal being a little complicated because of her broken arm, she drags Regina outside, leaving the children with her niece Ruby.

She’s still too shocked to protest, to take everything in, because things seem to be just happening, as if she has no control, but the London streets in 1939 are so different and yet so similar that she stares, observing, for a good minute, before Mrs. Lucas drags her away.

The streets are buzzing with activity, old cars passing right next to her – scenes she’s only seen in the movies, in black and white, but now it’s all colored and _real_.

“Girl, hurry up,” Mrs. Lucas tells her, shaking her from her fantasies. The older woman is fast, and she quickly moves around the street, Regina in tow – because she doesn’t dare to inquire about their destination, but she often finds herself looking around, distracted.

They don’t use the metro, but it’s a ten minute walk to the hospital. She’s not entirely familiar with this area, but it shouldn’t be so far from the place where Robin has found her. Mrs. Lucas enters with the confidence of a habitué, greeted by other nurses and one or two doctors.

She approaches a nurse, at some point – the woman is of small figure, dressed of white, blue eyes and long brown hair. “Hi, Mrs. Lucas,” she greets cheerfully, with a smile.

“Good morning, Belle,” Mrs. Lucas says. “This is Regina Mills,” she gestures towards her, and Regina motions to offer her right hand, but immediately feels a sharp, electric pain running up her arm. She hisses, even if she doesn’t mean to.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, shaking Belle’s hand with her left.

“Ah yes, that,” Mrs. Lucas intervenes. “She’ll need X-ray and a cast for that, if you can do me a favor.”

“Anything for my favorite teacher,” Belle smiles.

As it turns out, Regina’s arm is broken just above her wrist, and she’s the proud owner of a shining new cast by ten in the morning, and of a stash of new clothes by noon. It’s giving her a headache, how fast her hours are passing, how Mrs. Lucas hasn’t stopped for a minute during her London tour, how she seems to have far more energy than Regina – because the children, from the moment they’re back at the orphanage, the children demand their lunch, and their lunch is cooked, ready and eaten by two in the afternoon.

.::.

_After a morning in 1939 London, going back to the Orphanage felt like finding a quiet place, for me. Despite the children’s lively attitudes, their vivacity and never-ending willingness to run around like spinning tops, it felt like the only safe place I had left on Earth._

_And I guess it was true, to some extent._

_The only place where I knew some people, where I had a bed to sleep at night – even if it wasn’t mine, even if my only friend there was a ten year old boy._

_It was the only place that could look like home._

.::.

“Regina?”

She was walking through a corridor downstairs, trying to reach the kitchen. “Yes?” she answers, turning on her heels. Doing so, her newly-bought ivorydress floats around her.

“Can I… talk to you? Now?”

She tilts her head, but follows Robin inside a room that looks very much like an office of some sorts. There’s a desk, two chairs – one on each side of the desk, framed pictures above it, next to a typewriter and a phone – on the walls, shelves of books and papers. He sits, pointing at the other chair. She takes place in front of him, unsure, because she feels the moment has finally come.

He sighs, his eyes scanning her, and… he looks like he doesn’t want to do this. He looks like he wishes to be anywhere but here. She bites the inner of her cheek, and suddenly desires he’d just start and get over with it.

He stays silent, though, so she speaks first. “What’s the matter, Robin?”

The sound of his own name seems to wake him up, because he nearly shakes his head in an effort to concentrate. “Yeah, uhm, sorry,” he tells her, eyes drifting up to meet hers. She folds her hands in her lap, trying not to fidget with Daniel’s ring too much.

“So, I wanted to ask you a few questions,” he starts. Here it is.

She prepares her soul, in that split second she has before the questioning begins.

“Who are you, Regina?”

Her eyes fall to her intertwined fingers, a silent prayer lifts towards the sky – across time and space, she believes. “I’m… American,” she says. It’s a good starting point, she thinks. She has to stay as close as possible to the truth.

He doesn’t interrupt her, so she soldiers on. “I came here in London to… search for a new job, and when you found me I’d just arrived from the train station to the metro. I was trying to reach the center, to find a place to stay, when a pickpocket stole my purse and everything I had inside. I… I don’t think he was alone, because someone else pushed me to the ground, so… they took my suitcase too… and that’s where you found me,” she ends.

Robin is watching her intently, and she tries not to blink often. _Well played, Mills_ , she congratulates herself. In this way, she can explain the loss of her personal belongings _and_ the fact he found her with a head concussion.

He hums, toying with a pencil in the meantime. “So you have someone in America that must be worried for you,” he offers, as an incentive to go on.

“No,” Regina quickly amends. “My parents are both dead.” _Well, I guess it’s true. Daddy was already gone when I left 2017, and Mother… at this point we can easily say she’ll outlive me_. “And… my husband…” she takes a breath. Thinking of Daniel hurts. “I’m a widow.”

_My husband isn’t born yet._

“Oh,” Robin answers, meeting her eyes. She can’t help but think there’s a flash of new light in his eyes, but it lasts a second and it’s gone.

Then, he resumes his swirling the pencil between his fingers. She isn’t he only one who’s nervous. “The question is, Regina… how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

Her heart skips a beat. She searches for an answer, frantically. But there’s none.

Her silence shows everything she is thinking. “Why…” she clears her throat, her discomfort clearly on display. “Why shouldn’t you believe me? I _am_ telling the truth.”

He narrows his eyes – a wrinkle appears in the middle of his forehead. “But you have no proof.”

Finally, her shoulders fall. She feels defeated. “I don’t,” she admits. “I guess you’ll just have to… trust me.”

Robin lifts up from the chair, and she flinches, but he doesn’t touch her. Instead, he opens a drawer from another desk next to him, and rummages inside. The object of his quest is clear, when it lands right in front of her eyes.

She represses a shiver, when she sees it. It’s a newspaper, the _Time_ , dated 1938, and Hitler’s face is staring at her from the cover.

She remembers that cover. The Man of the Year.

“Now I wonder, Regina,” his voice has lowered quite a lot from the last time he spoke. “I wonder, why would an American come to Europe in times like this?”

She doesn’t answer, because the she’s still staring at the newspaper, horrified. _This is my reality now._

All the distress she is trying to hide since her arrival seems to fall back and wash over her, all together. Her breath catches in her throat.

“Unless,” Robin says, “unless you haven’t told me the entire truth. You see, no offence, but the… situation here isn’t… _ideal_ , for… someone like you.”

Her head snaps up at that, she can’t help the scowl forming on her face. “Someone like me?”

He’s near her, now. His hand reaches for hers, and she lets him – she doesn’t know why, but she lets him take her hand and pass his thumb over her knuckles.

“I didn’t mean to offend you in any way,” he says. “But… you’re alone. Unmarried. You, as far as I’m concerned, have no past and no roots, no possible proof of your identity. And having an identity is _everything_ , in times like this.”

“England is safe,” Regina replies, illogically. He must know, because he sighs. He squeezes her hand, and leaves it. It falls back into her lap again.

“Look, I’m trying to help you, here,” he tells her.

_It doesn’t seem like that._

“You are,” she lies. “I’d appreciate even more if you stopped bombarding me with questions.” She kicks herself for the horrible choice of words, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Listen.” He goes to sit again, facing her earnestly. “I don’t think you understand my position here.”

“Then tell me,” she urges. He throws a glare at her, and she thinks he looks tired. Burdened. It could be her imagination. When he starts speaking, though, she knows it’s true.

“I was a soldier, Regina. A pilot, for the RAF. So, long story short, my mother opened this orphanage during the war. I’m trying to make it live.” He shifts slightly on the chair, resting his elbows on the table. “Mrs. Lucas is my aunt – without her help, those kids wouldn’t have a place to stay.”

She tries to open her mouth to say something, but he stops her, raising one hand.

“You see, I can’t welcome here someone I don’t know, someone who could be a target, or worse – a spy. I’m not thinking of my safety, but of the children, do you understand?”

This time, Regina speaks – she doesn’t care if he hasn’t finished. “Robin,” she pleads, in a tone that sounds weird to her own ears. Her hand reaches for his across the table, and, surprisingly, he lets her hold it. “I’m not the kind of person who would endanger a child in any way.”

“How do I know that?”

“Believe _me_ ,” she tells him, with conviction. She may have lied about everything, but _this_ , she can’t let him think this – that she’d betray them, _him_ , after he saved her life. “No one knows me in Europe, I promise. I’m not a threat for you. I’m not a target. I’m not running from anything,” she says with more force than she intended to. And it’s true, every word – she’s not running, she _wants to go home_.

Before Robin can speak, she leaves his hand and reaches for the newspaper, still placed between them. “And I’m not a spy,” she declares. Her finger runs above the cover. “I hate this new policy as much as you do, believe me.”

She thinks of her own times – of the seeds of racism that never seem to go away, not even after seventy years.

Robin is still looking at her, when she lifts her eyes from the journal.

He stays silent for a while. Her thumb goes instantly to toy with her ring, waiting, hoping he’ll see through her and understand she’s telling the truth. Well, at least the pieces she can tell him without ending up in an insane asylum.

In the end, he sighs, his left hand going to rub at his temple.

His eyes meet hers before pronouncing the final judgement.

“God help me, I think I believe you.”

.::.

_I’ve always thought I was a terrible liar. I just couldn’t do it – I couldn’t lie. My poker face was practically non-existent. In my job, when you have to tell someone that their beloved is dying, or is dead, you have to play, to act as if you were on stage. You have to wear a mask of stone and truth, to get rid of your feelings. Their reaction is the only thing that matters._

_When Robin has kept me in his office for one hour, talking, and asking, and questioning me – after that, I was drained. Spent._

_My heartbeat was so loud I thought he could hear it._

_And I lied._

_They say you shouldn’t lie to those who help you, but may the heavens forgive me, I didn’t have a choice._

.::.

In the silence that follows, Regina tries to keep a smile from forming on her lips. Robin is not looking at her – he apparently finds something on his desk to be very interesting. She doesn’t dare to ask if she’s free to go.

“Thank you,” she whispers, relief flooding over her soul like a balm. He shakes his head. She can tell he’s still conflicted, he’s asking himself if he came to the wrong decision or not. His head snaps up, as if he’s remembering something.

“What kind of job did you want to find, here?”

Regina widens her eyes, but again, she chooses to stay close to the truth. “I left America because there was nothing left there for me,” she says. Her heart is hurting, so much. _This is not right_ , it screams – she’s going against the flow, in the wrong direction – but even if she goes back to America now, it’s the wrong year, it’s all wrong…

“…and?” he asks. She realizes she’s never finished her answer.

“I’m a doctor,” she says, in a breath.

He lifts an eyebrow, somehow impressed. “You must be really good then.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

He clears his throat, the hint of a smile in his eyes. “Nothing, it’s just that… it’s _rare_ to find a… female doctor here.”

“Clearly, you’re a bit behind when it comes to emancipation,” she tells him, and she would cross her arms, if she could.

He laughs, then, unexpectedly. “My mother would have liked you so much, Regina,” he tells her. “You sound exactly like her.”

“And yet it seems the cleverness has skipped a generation,” she answers back, without missing a beat.

He doesn’t reply – they’re interrupted by a loud bang of the door, which makes her jump on her chair and turn around to face the intruder, stretching painfully her arm.

“Roland!” Robin scolds promptly. She is puzzled for a moment, her gaze dropping down to the tiny frame of a child on the doorframe.

“Daddy!” he beams, totally unaware or just unfazed by his father’s reprimands. Regina turns back again to face Robin. _Your son?_ she mouths questioningly. He nods, getting up from his chair.

“Roland, what did I say about barging in my office?”

He looks sheepish, then – his gaze lowers to his feet in shame. “Sorry,” he mumbles. His eyes lift for a second, glaring at her and smiling.

“It’s okay,” Robin says, going to scoop him up in his arms. “Roland, meet Miss Regina. She’ll stay here for a while.”

“She will?” Roland inquires, and Regina at the same time, “I will?”

“Most definitely,” Robin confirms. “Let’s go have dinner, shall we?”

And just like that, with one last squeeze of her hand, he exits, leaving her there, surprised and amazed – as a warm feeling starts spreading in her chest.

.::.

He’s weird, at dinner.

Keeps glancing at her from above his soup, trying not to let her notice. The chit-chat from the children dulls to a background sound every time he meets her eyes. She’s tempted to ask what’s wrong, but she doesn’t want to draw attention on his sullen mood.

Mrs. Lucas doesn’t seem to pay him any mind. But Regina feels something is off – he was laughing with Roland just one hour ago, and now he toys with his bread, smiling at his child every now and then.

As soon as she’s finished, she moves up to help with the dishes – but Mrs. Lucas stops her promptly, motioning at Robin, and he lifts up, with a deep sigh.

“Follow me,” he says – again, that voice, of a man who wishes to be anywhere but there. Regina starts turning, to ask what’s wrong, but Mrs. Lucas tells her to go, she’ll finish up with the children, just go. Regina can’t help but notice she looks… kind of sad too.

Robin leads her up the stairs, through the corridor, to an empty room. A guest room, she dares to consider it, because there’s a bed and shelves with books, and a wardrobe, and even a window.

“Here’s your room,” he tells her. No smile, just a small tugging up of his lips. Not that she was expecting a smile, anyway. At this point, she just wants to know what’s wrong with him.

She gets her answers seconds later.

She has neared the bed, looking up at the books on the shelf, and distancing herself from this man who seems to hate her. (Or not. It’s a damn mystery.)

Robin is standing on the doorframe. When she turns to thank him, he doesn’t let her speak. Instead, he talks first. “I’m very sorry I have to do this, Regina,” he tells her.

“Do what?”

Robin doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns and closes the door behind him. She doesn’t move – not until she hears a key turn in the lock.

“What are you doing?” she yells, sprinting to the door. She hits it with a fist, with no use. “Let me out!”

“It’s only for one day or two,” his voice comes from the other side, muffled. “I have a friend in the Secret Services who is looking for your files. If he finds nothing, you’ll be free to go.”

“You can’t keep me here!” she screams.

“I’m sorry.” he repeats. She hears his footsteps going away, and a broken sob exits her mouth.


	5. Mimosa

\- 5 - 

**Mimosa**

 

_I’ve always thought of myself as a smart person. No nonsense, no flurry dreams and inconsistent stupid promises – it was always me, Daniel, and my career. All my life looked like an already drawn path, of which I could already foresee the shape – the beginning, the middle, the ending – as I marched down the street of the years to come, without turning back, without hesitation or fear – or regrets – on and on, straight ahead…_

_Now, it was a spiral, uncontrollable, making me swirl and twist and turn._

_One would think that going back in time would guarantee you some kind of security – after all, you already know what’s going to happen, more or less – but, truthfully, the future had never seemed so scary._

.::.

She’s in her room since two days, and she’s bored.

She didn’t expect to be bored – she expected to be angry, or depressed, or furious – and she’s been furious, but rage consumed her. Rage makes you tired. So she was furious, but it has lasted for some hours after the door locked.

She’s bored, because adrenaline burned all the fear she was feeling. It has been a rough start, in her room. She has felt fearful, immensely angry and tired all together. In the end, she has collapsed on the bed, wetting the pillow with fat tears, and she has cried herself to sleep.

There always is food, waiting for her. She has discovered a useful little trick she has only seen in movies once or twice – a dumbwaiter, that weird small lift nestled in the wall.

And she has books, but she is not in the mood. Too busy reflecting upon her miseries – whining, her mother would say – her mind will not let her be, or forget her troubles for a little while. So she lies in her bed all day, getting up to use the toilet or to eat, and she thinks.

What will be the first thing she’ll do after getting out of here, for example.

_Find a way to go home._

.::.

It’s the third day – the third night, to be exact – and she hears it.

A soft _thump, thump, thump_ , outside the room. And then it stops. Right on the other side of the door.

Regina slowly rises from the bed, her heart slamming on her chest, and nears the door. But there is only silence, meeting her ears, and she tells herself that maybe she imagined that. Maybe three days without human interaction can do that to your psyche, and she is going crazy, hearing noises.

And she hears it again. A slow knocking, three little sounds, three long sounds, three little sounds. If she were completely herself, she’d said someone is trying to communicate in Morse code, and that is the SOS combination. Three dots, three dashes, and three dots.

“Is someone out there?”

Her voice exits a little louder than she’d intended to, but the die is cast.

From the outside, the mysterious someone answers.

“Regina?”

She knows this voice. Disbelieving, she approaches the surface that keeps them apart.

“Henry?”

“Yes, it’s me,” comes his murmur.

“Henry, what are you doing here?” Regina says, her forehead going to lie on the door. It’s cold, the wood, and her hand grips the handle. Her heart beats faster, and she can feel tears pooling in her eyes, because this is the first time she speaks with someone in days. Even though she has known him for such a short time, she has missed Henry.

He is the only friend she has in here. The only one who isn’t telling her lies, or locking her away, or blatantly denying her the truth.

“I wanted to see you,” he says, so sweet and honest, _bless the child’s heart_.

Regina closes her eyes, losing her battle against tears, and speaks in return. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” she says. “I fear I’m stuck in here for a while.”

He doesn’t answer for so long she thinks he’s gone. And then, she hears, “I just can’t understand why you have to stay there,” he tells her. “Robin won’t explain it to me.”

“Henry…” she whispers resignedly. “Sometimes, grown-ups do… what they think it’s right, to protect those they care about…”

“… and locking you here means you are a threat?”

“I’m not, sweetheart,” she reasons. “But Robin doesn’t trust me, and I don’t know how to convince him.”

Henry _mmm_ s quite loudly. And then, Regina hears the sound she has waited for.

A key turning in its hole.

She barely has the time to lift her forehead before the door swings open. Henry is on the other side, wearing an old, too-big pajamas, and he’s clutching his hand around a flashlight. He looks determined, if not a little nervous.

“I know you are good,” he states, firmly.

So Regina does what is only natural in this case – she flies to hug him. And it’s so wonderful, to have him circling her waist with his still short arms, to press her cheek above his hair, and to whisper _Thank you_ with a small voice that doesn’t sound like her own.

When they release their embrace, he looks at her quizzically. “Do you want to escape?” he asks.

.::.

_Did I want to escape?_

_Well, yes._

_But I was also rational. I had much time to think about it, during my imprisonment, and I knew I wasn’t ready to escape yet. First, there was the issue of my broken arm and still healing body. I needed my full strength to get out of there. And right now, I didn’t have it. Then, I hadn’t a clue on where to go. Well, I had a clue. But nothing certain. I needed to be prepared, to be sure the trip back wouldn’t take me even further in time. It wasn’t so obvious, that I’d end up in 2017._

_I thought I could search in the witch’s shop, just as a starting point. If I was lucky, maybe that shop was now run by her mother, and she could have helped me._

_Another point I had, was the Underground station where Robin had found me. Tottenham Court Road. I didn’t know how, but there was something weird, in that place – something which had ripped the veil of time and made me land there, of all places._

_I wasn’t ready to escape. I had some plotting to do, first._

.::.

Regina shakes her head, offering him a smile. “No, honey,” she says. “I want to stay and prove I’m a good person… But for that, I’ll need your help.”

His face lightens up, already excited with this new adventure. It breaks her heart, to disappoint him, but she goes on. “I need you to lock me up again, and to replace that key where you found it.”

He is confused, and looks at her like she’s mental. “Why?”

“Because if I exit – if I escape, if I’m not in my room – Robin will convince himself I’m not trustworthy, and this time there’s no coming back,” she explains. “He needs to see I’m still in here, and a breakout is not a good move to gain his trust, is it?”

Henry slowly nods, still unconvinced. “Okay,” he accepts. “But I want you to have this, at least.” He crouches down, next to her door, and she notices his book there. He lifts it, and she takes the book with a smile in return.

He looks at her for one moment, hesitating, then goes to hug her again. The hard cover of his book presses against her hand. She’s a bit taken aback from this sudden display of affection, but welcomes it nonetheless. She wills herself not to cry.

“Thank you, Henry,” she murmurs.

Some moments later, she catches his eyes one last time, and then the key turns again.

.::.

_I read the book all night. Stories of warrior princesses, shepherds, pirates, lonely queens. There was Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella, but also other stories I’d never heard of. I read it until my eyes hurt, and yet I couldn’t put it down. There was something in those stories that simply made me feel like I was home._

_I’ve never liked fairy tales too much. Daniel was the reader, between the two of us. He’d often told me he used to bring books along when they sent him abroad for a mission. His comrades would make fun of it, but he didn’t care._

_When the dawn filtered through the curtains, I finally understood what I was looking for._

_The happy ending._

.::.

It’s almost afternoon when Robin opens the door.

Regina is lying on the bed, her back to the door, and sleeps, but not so soundly after all, because all it takes for her to wake is a touch of his hand on her shoulder.

“Regina?” he whispers. “Regina, wake up.”

She protests with a scrunch of her nose, but she wasn’t actually sleeping soundly, so she opens her eyes. “What?”

It comes harsh, out of her mouth, but Robin is unfazed.

“I… came to tell you how it went with my friend at the Secret Services.”

And that is an interesting subject, so she turns to face him. “And?”

In the pause that follows, he pulls back, going to sit on the chair, while she pushes her hands on the mattress to gain a sitting position. She studies his face, but there’s no tell-tale sign, no clue. He isn’t here with a gun, though, and that can only be a good thing.

“And,” he sighs, one hand going through his hair, “and he… found quite the interesting information.”

Regina tenses, stills on the bed. Her mind races, heart thumping fast, because what the hell could his friend find, when she literally is no one in this city? In this _age_?   
She remains silent, because if he has something against her, the last thing she wants to do is to worsen her situation.

Robin must have noticed her discomfort, because he reaches towards her hand, but finds nothing but the cold sheets when she retreats it. He sighs again.

“He found a file about you,” he says. “A little favor from our American fellows – apparently, you said the truth, at least about your profession, and you’re not a spy of sorts, but…”

“But?” she urges.

_How, how is this possible?_ she thinks, scratching nervously her palm. It must be the witch – the mirror, when she came here. She knows nothing, about the magical laws that allowed her to land in 1939, but from this to actually _have_ an American identity – it’s mind-blowing, she doesn’t…

“…but he found out you’re one of _them_.”

Her brow furrows, she’s confused. “…one of what?”

He raises an eyebrow, expectantly. “Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m _not_!” she protests. “I just need to know what’s happening!”

“So, you deny it? I mean, it’s not dangerous in _itself_ , at least for the children, but still…”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, just tell me!”

She’s impatient, and she has just decided she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what he thinks of her, if he’ll kill her or leave her to starve, or maybe other delightful things that happen to suspicious people.

He looks at her, piercing holes in her soul – she actually has to blink twice, before being able to look at him in the eyes.

“My friend told me you came here to take part in the suffragettes’ fight. We know they call themselves the Daughters of the Dragon.”

Regina knows her poker face is, normally, a plain hopeless move, but now, she absolutely forgets about it.

“W-what?” she chokes. A small laugh bubbles up from her throat. “Me? Are you nuts?”

He tilts his head, puzzled. “Am I.. what?”

Regina shakes her head, a murmuring voice inside of her warns harshly. _Be careful, you idiot, this is not the time to use 21 st century slang_. “I mean, are you insane?” she corrects. “Why would I come here to… do that?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know? Women’s rights? Enlighten me.”

She rolls her eyes in annoyance, this moron. “How on hell can I tell you about something I know nothing about?”

Robin doesn’t look convinced, not at all. He passes his hands soothingly above his thighs. “Fine, _milady_ ,” he adds mockingly. “I guess this makes you free to go, then.”

A pang of something bitter goes through her heart. Maybe the thought of him despising her, or the fact he’s so ready to see her go away. So, her following words are shy. “I don’t… have a place to go to anymore.”

His eyes are softer, when she meets them. Pity, maybe? She doesn’t want his pity. But, if she can, she will accept his help. Better swallowing down her pride, than starve to death in some London slum.

When he motions to open his mouth, she shies away from his gaze.

“Do you… want to stay?” he asks, calmly. “For a while?”

_Until I can escape this hellhole on the edge of war, yeah, and then I’ll leave you_ _guys at it_.

“Yes,” she answers.

He nods, and she sees a smile starting to open on his face. “Welcome, then, Regina,” he tells her, with a small bow of his head – that has nothing of the mockery and everything of the contentment.

She finds herself reciprocate the smile, despite her instincts screaming, _Don’t, don’t you dare to get attached._

“Thank you.”


	6. Castle of Glass

\- 6 - 

**Castle of Glass**  

 

_'cause I'm only a crack_  
_in this castle of glass_  
_hardly anything there_  
_for you to see_  


_bring me home in a blinding dream_   
_through the secrets that I have seen_   
_wash the sorrow from off my skin_   
_and show me how to be whole again_

 

Regina stirs in her bed, her arms stretching up in a lazy move. She basks in the realization that this will be the day when she finally gets rid of the cast of her arm, and she can start plotting her escape from the Orphanage.

One month.

One month has passed since she’s here. The beaming smile of her first moments of wake falters into something resembling a grimace.

_Daniel_.

She thinks of him every day. If time has passed there, he must have already spent a month searching for her. She can almost picture him – walking into Scotland Yard, with that damned cigarette between his lips. He would press the butt of the cigarette into the ashtray, reaching automatically for another one as he waits for the Detective to receive him. Nervous. Worried. Heartbroken.

Regina bites her lower lip and turns on her pillow. She’s here since one month, and Daniel must think she’s hurt, or she’s been kidnapped, or – that she has run away, with someone else.

How many times she’s thought that of him. How many nights she has spent, alone in her bed in America, while he was away. Imagining his body lying next to a woman’s – warm, inviting, new, exotic, everything she was not.

He would get offended, when she expressed her worries. Instead of soothing them, he’d get angry – _as if I could betray you, Regina, how silly_. But then they’d always make peace, satisfied smiles between bed sheets. And she has willed herself to ignore her fears.

Now, he – he has stayed a month without her, unless times has moved differently there, and he wonders why she’s not coming back. Because a kidnapper would have requested for money, by now. She has to have left him.

That New Year’s Eve… when he has entered the restaurant and hasn’t found her. She blinks, letting a lonely  tear fall, and pushes away the covers. No more whining.  

_It’s time to go home_.

Maybe.

..::..

_Life, at the Orphanage, was… surprisingly tolerable._

_I didn’t see Robin much. Mrs. Lucas told me that he was busy – apparently, the man had quite a lot of activities in his hands. Juggling between the Orphanage, and this mysterious work no one seemed to know anything about._

_One evening, Mrs. Lucas finally deemed me worthy of a filament of trust, and told me it was with the government, and the army. I knew he was a trained pilot – and yet, this weird job he had looked like something suspicious. The war hadn’t started yet._

_But it was private – and secret, and I had no business here._

_Really._

_I was trying not to let anyone involve me in 1939 facts and problems. I didn’t plan to stay for longer than needed, and I tried to make my presence as scarce as possible. So, my day was… long, and repetitive, but at least I could stay in my room, and help Mrs. Lucas with the basic tasks one can accomplish with a broken arm._

_In the meanwhile, I tried every mirror I could find, with no outcome._

..::..

“Here you go, girl,” Mrs. Lucas smiles at Regina, as Belle finishes removing the cast. “All new.”

“Thank you,” Regina answers, flexing and deflecting her fingers.

“How does it feel?” Belle asks.

“Oh, it’s… quite weird,” she answers. She doesn’t feel pain, not really. It’s… like a light buzz, muscles coming to life once again, a bit weak on the edges, but nothing she can’t take. “It’s okay, I think.”

“I learned from the best,” Belle says proudly, with a side glance towards Mrs. Lucas, who smiles.

“Shouldn’t be up to a doctor, to do this?” Regina asks. It fascinates her, that a young nurse was forced to take the entire responsibility of her broken arm, and she hasn’t met a doctor yet.

Belle shifts uncomfortably. “Yes,” she carefully answers. “But… these are minor injuries, and my responsible said we should take care of them by ourselves.”

Mrs. Lucas tuts disapprovingly, takes her purse. “I keep saying you should talk to Madame De Beaufort, dear.” But Belle shakes her head with a smile, and squeezes her hand.

“We can manage – but I promise, when it’s too… much, I will.”

They say nothing else on the subject, so Regina inquires further when they’re exiting. It’s a nice place – clean, if not else, and bright, now she gets why it’s called Angels Hospital. She keeps moving her hand, and she’s pleased to notice the arm seems to have healed quite well. “So, what’s wrong with nurse French?”

Mrs. Lucas fixes her hat, without looking at her. “Nothing,” she replies. “At least, nothing wrong with her… but times will change, darling,” she says, with a mischievous glance. “Times will change.”

_You have no idea yet_ , Regina muses, her gaze observing the streets as they walk. _You have no idea_.

..::..

She runs.

Mrs. Lucas has entered a shop – she has told her to _Please go there, in the meanwhile, and buy some onions because we’re out of onions, girl_ , and Regina _has_ gone there – well, at least she has turned the corner, and looked over her shoulder. Mrs. Lucas is still busy with the owner of that shop, and this is the first time she’s truly unguarded, ever since her arrival here.

So, she runs.

She walks with a fast pace – forcing herself to relax, not to constantly check if she’s followed, and walks. Takes a few turns, to blend into the crowd – she’s not noticeable, not really, she hasn’t got a cast on her arm or Twenty-first-century clothes. She looks like a perfectly respectable woman, she thinks, mid-height heels, long coat and gloves, and a hat inclined on her hair.

So she waits until she feels it’s safe to stop, and then takes a look around.

_This is so stupid_.

To go like this, without… saying goodbye. Her brain shakes off the thought – hasn’t this been her plan all along? To go home?

_Yes, but… Henry_ , she objects. I _could have bid farewell to Henry. At least_.

_It’s too late now_.

So, Regina stills on the spot, realizing she’s been there for a minute straight without moving. And she turns, catches another woman’s attention. “Excuse me,” she says, and the woman looks at her. She’s a bit shorter than Regina is, but has deep green eyes and long black hair.

“Yes?” the woman says, unfazed. Must have noticed the accent.

“I was looking for… Tottenham Court Road – the underground, you know –”

“Yes, sure,” the woman answers. “You have to go straight, and then left, and straight again. It’s not far.”

Regina thanks her – she feels her eyes on her back, as she goes, piercing pools of green staring at her, but she doesn’t turn, because if she does, she could actually change her mind. So it’s straight ahead and down the stairs and she’s in the Underground.

And there’s a mirror.

There’s a wall, the platform, and there is a mirror.

She freezes.

..:::..

_I still remember that day. It was the first time I entered the station after the day I arrived, and it was… different. It wore the signs of damage and reparations._

_And the mirror was cracked. Not broken. Cracked._

_I know I approached the shining surface – I wanted to observe it, closer, without touching it yet, so I took two steps. There were no laborers around. The platform was quiet, for a working day – it was like they’d left me space, for me and my mirror, to try the impossible and go home._

_I always loved cracked mirrors. I don’t know why, maybe it was that weird superstition about misfortune, but I found them fascinating._

_And now, this mirror was scaring me to death._

_What if it didn’t worked? What if I ended up further in time? I’m aware I should have considered everything better. I should have done research, but what could I have asked for at the library, a book about time travels? Truth was, I saw an opportunity to run – from the people who had taken me in, and more or less welcomed me in their lives. I had this opportunity and I took it, without thinking._

_I should have thought._

..:::..

Regina lifts one hand. It feels like a déjà-vu, to lift her fingers to touch a mirror, but this time she isn’t curious or skeptical. She’s… strangely hopeful.

She takes one last glance towards her left. It’s like a farewell. But hell, she’s lived here for a month. She will forget them soon.

When her finger touches the glass, she sees.

She sees everything.

.

.

It’s pain, at first. Pain that irradiates from her finger up to her arm, her spine, her stomach, twist and turns her insides, pulls at her hair, makes her hurt and clench and double over.

Then it’s images, and it’s even worse.

Because it’s blood – so much blood, gloves and syringes and scalpels, then it’s a black hood and a dark cape – she can’t see who’s concealed under it. It’s a flower, swirling in the wind and falling down in someone’s lap.

.

.

The sound of a cannon. Ashes. Burned bodies.

.

.

There is a letter, flying in the wind. A train. A horse. Blood, again, more pain, it’s a different kind of blood, this one coagulates and goes down in dripping sensations of viscous sticky substance. It makes bile rise from her throat.

.

.

No.

A word, reverberating in her mind, no. _No_.

Her hand flies away, the cracks in the mirror glowing of red and black before turning back to normal. Regina’s breath is accelerated, her heart feels like a trapped bird in a cage. Has she seen her future? Her past? The war? _Why couldn’t she go home?_

This was the right place – where she came from, a station of London Underground, a station that has a mirror and the dust from an explosion still lingering in the air and in her lungs.

Her scream is imprisoned down there, and she can’t sing it away.

..:::..

She doesn’t know how she makes her way upstairs – but she does, in some way, and looks around puzzled, until she spots the same woman from before.

“Are you okay?” the woman asks, concerned.

“Yes,” Regina cuts. “Look, I’m – I really need you to tell me how I can get to the Sherwood Orphanage from here. It’s important.”

Maybe, someone else would have called the police by now, but the brunette nods. Regina forces her mind to listen to the indications, and merely thanks her before going. She must think I’m insane, she muses. It’s not until she reaches a familiar street, that she realizes what’s that pain in her heart.

She has almost lost hope.

And she’s trapped in 1939.  

..:::..

She enters the Orphanage in a hurry – must look like she’s been through Hell itself, because little Charles asks her, “Miss Regina, are you alright?” – she ignores him, poor sweet boy, runs up the stairs, dirtying them with wet shoes and heels, and she walks faster along the corridor.

She stops in front of Robin’s studio. He’s not alone.

It comes to her mind that she must look like a mess – bewildered, glassy eyes and pale skin, fear still on her face.

But Robin sees her, and it’s too late. She doesn’t even know why she has stopped, to be honest.

The woman – because it’s a woman, that she can see, an elegant hat on her hair, dark clothes – the woman is turned and has her back to the door, but Robin sees Regina, and he’s standing behind his desk. In three long and quick steps, he’s at the door, the moment he sees her, before the mysterious woman can even start to turn in her direction.

She hears him hiss an _Excuse me_ towards the almost closed door, and turns towards her.

“Regina?” his voice is kind, soft, and only now she realizes how she’s missed it – in these days he was away, but also because she mentally said goodbye to everyone here. Maybe, thought, it’s his hand tangling with hers that makes her lose her composure for good.

A sob cracks her – she doesn’t cry, but it’s a strong inhale of air, as if she’s been underwater too long, it’s definitely the kind of sound one does when the urge of crying is strong. Her chin bobs, his words are quick.

“Hey, hey, Regina,” another sharp inhale, she lifts her eyes, “Regina, are you alright?”

“…no, I’m not alright,” she offers. It’s not an explanation, but it’s the best she can do to hide the trembling quality of her voice. “But… she’s waiting for you, you should go,” she motions towards the door, motions to move, but he grabs her forearm gently.

“Wait,” he says, and draws her into an embrace. She goes willingly – her fingers curling around his sweater, her face hidden in his shoulder. He smells nice.

He’s running his hands up and down her back in a soothing movement. “It’s alright,” he whispers. “It will be alright.”

“No, it won’t,” she murmurs. She’s not to be given false hopes, when she knows it won’t be alright. But maybe, for this _once_. Maybe, in this hug, she can let herself believe. Just for a moment.

“You want to talk about it?”

She thinks of the horrors she has seen – and knows she won’t talk about it, like it’s nothing, like he can understand. She shakes her head. Another whiff of his smell hits her nostrils – it’s… pine, and – something like… clean clothes and sun, and a faint trace of smoke.

Just for a moment.

“Mrs. Lucas told me you’d run away,” he says. She feels a slight crack in his voice – but then again, maybe she’s just imagined it. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

Regina takes one last breath of his scent, and then pulls back from him. “But I have,” she says. “I meant what I said – I’m not as shady as you think me to be.”

It’s a blatant lie, and it strikes her, how good she’s gotten at lying. Still, it seems like he can detect it – he can read her, but he says nothing. (Maybe he has secrets of his own. But she doesn’t owe him her own secrets – her gratitude, maybe, yes, but not her secrets. Let’s be real, he’d lock her in a mental asylum.)

So she watches him nod, feeling just a bit guilty about it.

A weak smile is the last fragment of her weakness she is willing to show him. A last gentle squeeze of his arm, and she goes down the corridor, towards her room.

Lets him be with his guest.


	7. Adagio

\- 7 - 

**Adagio**

 

_I used to fight with Daniel. Many times. Often. I’m stubborn, I admit it, and he was always calm and poised. So there were times when he came back from a mission, exhausted and dirty, feeling like his soul was rotten to the core. There were times when I couldn’t save a life, and I ended up throwing up my lunch and seeing eyes, so many eyes – eyes of the people who’d lost their beloved, I had to tell them, and it was nightmares and insomnia. And I loved my job, I really did. But people feel entitled to living, these days. Those days._

_It was not my reality anymore. Mine, was Mrs. Lucas talking of her three brothers, dead in the first world war, and saying it could have been worse._

_Daniel was taking lives for a living. I was saving them._

_And yet I felt like we were both in the wrong place._

..::..

“Granny?”

They’re in the kitchen, just her, Mrs. Lucas and Ruby, and the two women are sewing as Regina peels apples to make a pie. The children have just gone to bed, but curfew doesn’t apply yet, so she’s grateful for all the chances she has to normalcy.

“Yes?” Mrs. Lucas says absentmindedly, holding a yarn between her teeth.

“How did Robin’s wife die?”

Mrs. Lucas stops and glances at Ruby, her eyes softening, and she lowers her hands to her lap. “I…” she gulps down, Regina has never seen her so distressed in the three months she’s been here. “I don’t think it’s my place to tell you.”

Ruby rolls her eyes, with a sparkle of that teenager rebellion she sometimes has. “I can’t just waltz down there and ask him, right?”

“I suppose you can’t,” Mrs. Lucas sighs. “Well then… you have to know – both of you, Regina, if you’re staying here you might as well know – that Robin was once very different.”

Regina wants, and desperately so, to ask what she means, but Ruby beats her to it. “In what sense?”

Mrs. Lucas seems resigned to tell the tale, now, because she takes out her glasses and places them carefully on the table. Regina realizes her hands have stopped peeling the apple, and her knife goes down as well. Although she has played her role differently, pretending to be a lone wolf, this is a subject that interests her.

“They were so in love,” says Mrs. Lucas, her eyes gleaming of a long-gone memory. “Her name was Marian. She was… a kind spirit. She had a way of seeing the beauty in others, even and, perhaps, most especially, when that person could not see it in themselves. And she loved books, and words. Her dream was to go to college… which, obviously, she couldn’t afford.”

“That’s a shame,” Regina comments. She thinks of her times – rich and ungrateful kids who haven’t got the slightest idea of what it means, to get higher education. Public schools, still so lowered and full of problems, all the money going to the private ones. She knew a girl like Marian, when she was young, a girl whose only path was skipping college and get an half-paid shitty job.

“You went to college, Regina?” Ruby pipes up.

She feels her cheeks burn – shame, maybe, but she nods, yes. She went, and hated every moment because it was the depiction her mother’s ambitions, but loved her job from the first day of internship. “I went to college, yes.”

“You were a doctor, right?”

But Mrs. Lucas must feel her discomfort. “Ruby, you wanted the rest of the tale or not?”

“Oh, yes, sorry.”

“So, I was saying. She died young. She’d just had Roland, he couldn’t have been more than… three weeks old, I believe.”

Regina feels one of her hand flying up, to cover her mouth. “Oh, my god…”. That poor boy, he has never met his mother, she realizes. “And… Robin?”

“Robin was a wreck,” she sighs. “A complete wreck. He shut down the East Wing. He closed the library, their old room, he hide Marian’s wedding dress, and he spent days drinking. Not that he has that problem now,” she rectifies. “But he… he was destroyed. I don’t think one’s heart can even – ever – be mended, after a pain like _that_. Now, it’s… a bit better, I guess,” she says, but there is a shadow of bitterness in her words. “He kept the Orphanage open because that’s what she would have wanted…”

Ruby shakes her head – she doesn’t seem distressed, maybe she did already know all of this. “Yes, Granny, but you didn’t answer… how did she die?”

“She was ill,” Mrs. Lucas says. “Pneumonia. They – I think they often manage to cure it, but with Marian… it was like she was rejecting all the medicine, it was… horrible. He never left her bed, not even to watch his son. And yet, she was always talking of her son, but of course we couldn’t let her have him after she got ill. It’s… even more dangerous if the baby gets the illness.

And one day… she was just… gone. Robin was outside – she’d told him to go, he had a training session with the RAF, so he went, but she suddenly got worse and was coughing the hell out of her lungs, and it was… terrible. When he came home, she was…”

Mrs. Lucas stops talking, brings up a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she mutters. “I… everyone loved Marian, here, it’s still hard for us to talk of her death, even if it’s been four years. You’re lucky we sent you away,” she tells Ruby. “It was not a pretty sight for young people.”

“Yes,” Ruby whispers. “I can imagine.”

Mrs. Lucas looks at Regina, then, and shakes her head. “Don’t cry, girl,” she says. “It’s no use now.”

It isn’t until she brings a finger to her cheek, that Regina realizes she has been crying, and feels the tears on her skin.

..::..

_I admit I shouldn’t have done what came next._

_But I was… heartbroken. For Roland, mostly. For Robin, just a bit. I couldn’t understand him. I couldn’t understand a parent who blatantly ignores his son to drown himself into alcohol._

_I was stupid, at that time, I admit it._

_Because until you yourself are grieving, you don’t understand grief.  
That time, my time for grief, was rapidly approaching, even if I didn’t know that yet. _

_I guess that having to adapt in 1939 took my mind away from my own grief. After all, for what I knew at the moment, I was never going to see Daniel again. I became a shell of myself. Hell, I’ve never truly lived, if you think about it. Pretty and acquiescent daughter, beautiful fiancée, wife, doctor. I was a label. A list of labels._

_Going back in time had been the first thing in my life that made me feel truly alive. Truly reckless and impulsive._

_And I don’t mean the kind of thrill you have down your spine when your horse jumps an obstacle. I meant – letting go. Jumping in a black hole, eyes closed._

_I really messed up, that time._

..::..

She steals a key.

Henry has some keys – unimportant ones. And Henry knows where the important ones are.

The Orphanage is pretty big, and she has always known this; but never explored it in its entirety. It takes some strength, but she finally manages to open the mysterious door that separates her from the East Wing. The door creaks under her touch, like it’s never been opened in years, but she knows it’s not the case. Robin must have come here, he must, she is sure he couldn’t have left all that was Marian in this rooms.

She has stolen Henry’s flashlight. The light dances on the dusty walls, as she walks the first corridor with something similar to adrenaline in her veins, and something similar to fear in her mind.

She doesn’t even know _why_ she’s here exactly. There’s a sentence, bouncing in her brain _, I need to know_.

_But… know what?_

_I will find out when I’ll know_.

The dust has really accumulated, in these years. There are paintings and old pictures, hung to the walls, but she doesn’t slow down. She knows the door won’t open, so she just has to find the one who will.

The one who responds to the key with the little skeleton engraved on it.

She walks, and walks, in absolute silence, through the endless corridor, her breaths the only noise she can hear. It’s not her business, to be here. If someone found out, to be honest, she doesn’t want to know the consequences. But… she’s been here for months, and this is the first time she actually feels like she’s doing something.

There is a wooden door, still shiny and perfect, at the end of her corridor. No spider webs – and this is weird, considering the state of abandon of the East Wing. She pushes on the wood lightly, with just two fingers, and the door opens smoothly, sliding on the parquet floor.

The smell hits her first, before everything else. It smells of books. Of old.

Regina enters, uncertain, as if she’s going inside a cathedral. And… it looks like it, under some aspects, it looks… enormous. Intimidating. Books and books everywhere, maps and a refined globe made of wood. There are books up to the ceiling, ladders to reach them. This must be the Locksley’s patrimony, one that isn’t being used. This is a library. Generations and generations have added their books here, and it’s as good as an university library.

She takes a few steps ahead, her fingers brushing over a gigantic book on a pedestal. There is everything, here. Everything to teach, to research, read, think, write. And no one is using this stuff because Robin is trapped in his own grief.

Regina thinks of the children. Of how most of them don’t even know how to read, including Roland. How Henry is the favorite storyteller because of his book. Of how few books there are, around the house. She has five or four in her room, she knows Granny has some, and Ruby, and Robin in his study; but these books are wasted here. No one is using them, or caring for them, and they will be feeding the rats soon, she bets.

There’s a desk, in the middle of the first room, and it looks old. Her heart skips a heartbeat when she realizes this desk is not dusty – it’s been used, and recently, so she nears it. There are letters, tied with a lilac ribbon. Dry flowers in a vase. And a beautiful leather-covered diary in the middle. There’s no key, and there’s a small voice on the back of her mind that tells her she shouldn’t do this, she really shouldn’t, but her hand goes up to skim on the pages, and opens it.

 _22th of April 1937_ , it reads. _Roland had a mild fever. He asked about a story, and I did read one to him, but sometimes I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s just impossible, to be going on without…_

Her eyes widen, because – this must be Robin’s notebook. And she absolutely shouldn’t be reading this. The temptation is strong – because the clock on the desk tells her it’s almost midnight, and there’s no one here. So she flips through the pages.

_16th of August 1937. We had a new boy, today. He’s eight, his name is Henry. Yesterday was his birthday, and the day he lost his parents. He seems to be too sad to realize. I sat with him for hours…_

Regina closes her eyes for a moment. _Oh, Henry_. Her need to go find him and squeeze him in a hug is stronger than ever. _My poor sweetheart, I’m so sorry_.

Her hand goes through a bunch of pages – of years – and she can’t resist, she goes straight to the day when she arrived here. She has to know…

And, finally, it’s there. _3rd of February, 1939. A bomb exploded in Tottenham Court Road, today. I rescued a woman, and brought her at the Orphanage. She… she looked at me, right before the bomb blew up, and I felt something. God forgive me, I hope she lives. I need to see_ _those eyes again_.

Her heart thumps faster and faster, now, she has to read more, before she can convince herself that she shouldn’t.

 _8th of February, 1939. Today, Granny gave Regina Marian’s clothes to wear, and I know she had good intentions, but I felt like I could have died, in that moment. When she has come downstairs, wearing her clothes, it was like I had an old ghost in front of me. It’s been a week since Marian’s death anniversary_ …

 _Oh, my god_. She could just throw up. _Marian’s clothes_ … she feels like crying, all of a sudden, as she skims quickly backwards in the diary to reach the February the 1st.

_Four years since Marian died. My love has not abated, because she was the one, and I loved her…_

The diary falls on the desk with a thud, but Regina doesn’t pay attention. Her knees give up, and she falls to the ground, dumbfounded, a lonely tear going down her cheek.

Marian died in 1939, on the first day of February, which happens to be Regina’s birthday.

For the first time since she’s here, she curses  the gods and all the magical mysterious force that has brought her here. Because she has only caused him pain, since – since the first day, since that breakfast when she was too preoccupied with her time travels to notice his stern expression, his… rage.

She cries. Cries on that dusty floor, curling up on herself. Cries for Henry, for Roland. For Robin. For Marian. For herself, because why is she here? Has she got a purpose? Or is she the pale and disgusting imitation of a woman who came first, whom the world adored, who was his everything?

She cries for Daniel.

 _Oh, I miss you, my love_ , she sobs, pressing her hands to her mouth. _I miss you. I want to go home, I want to kiss you and hold you, I want… I’m sorry, Daniel, I’m sorry._

..::..

_I don’t know how I reached my room that night. I know I tidied Robin’s desk, I erased all of my traces, and I probably went back through that corridor._

_I knew I had to forget the library, the East Wing and everything I’d found there. I knew it._

_But Regina Mills is a fool, and if you don’t believe me, you will soon change your mind. At that point, I think, I was the most confused person you could have found there. And yet every time I saw Henry, I thought that the world wasn’t so bad as I pictured it. He had hope, that kid. He had a book full of stories, smiles and reassurances, hugs, and a heart – so big and kind._

_I should have learned from Henry._

_But the war was coming, like a slow viscous poison. The war was… I think I often associated it with a countdown. I found myself thinking, May, four months of peace left, so close, so close._

_War was coming, and I hadn’t found my mirror._


	8. Rainy Days

\- 8 - 

**Rainy Days**

 

June comes with a thunderstorm.

King George VI and his wife – the queen consort Elizabeth – are in the United States, dining with president Roosevelt.

But in London, it rains  –  the weather has been unusually warm, lately, but even this unexpected heat can’t stop an occasional storm. Regina never liked them. She knows, many people love to curl up under blankets and listen to the rain, but honestly, when you’re alone for the most of the year, you don’t find that perspective fascinating. It’s only a reminder of what you’re missing.

It’s a time when she thinks of her husband more than usual. What he’s doing, if he has stopped looking for her, if he has left on a mission. Maybe he’s just there, in Asia, or Africa, moaning between some exotic beauty’s arms. Maybe he’s dead.

Maybe she _is_ a widow.

She hasn’t returned to Tottenham Court Road. Months have passed now, all six of them, and she is more and more resigned: she has to stay, and she will most likely die here once the war starts. But honestly, now Daniel and her past life feel like a dream. Her job, Kathryn, Mother and all the 21st century comforts, TV series, terroristic attacks and the like. She will never Skype call someone again, she won’t even use a TV for a long time, or a dishwasher, she won’t watch _Orphan Black_ , or even a _Hunger Games_ movie.

Honestly, that will be the future, but it’s her past now, a past she has almost said goodbye to. It’s like she’s in Wonderland, and the real world is just too fake and painful to think about. This world, here, has been kind and quiet so far – a part from a few bumps on the road, and she knows it won’t last much now.

It’s three in the morning and she’s watching out the window, hearing the storm without seeing it, and she thinks of silly things like these, when someone knocks at her door.

When she opens, she meets quite the unexpected sight.

“Roland?”

“Hi, R’gina,” he sniffs. She sees he has been crying, and her heart clenches in a reflex she didn’t think she was capable of. So she kneels, her eyes finding his.

“Roland, sweetie, what happened?”

When he bursts into tears without answering, she finds herself at a complete loss.

..::..

_I’ve never been good with children. I guess I could have been. I think. But children were an obscure realm for me. Sometimes I had to perform surgeries on them, but they stop being cute and such when they’re in surgery – they’re just a patient, a life you have to save._

_Once, I got a nightshift, and I found myself wandering near the nursery. I stayed next to the enormous glass which divided the visitors from the babies, and watched them for what felt like an immensely long time._

_They were so tiny. That’s what hit me – not their faces, or the bright future ahead, or the number of lives they were about to touch in some way. It hit me, that they were defenseless. Dependent. And yet, strong. I left the nursery feeling a nurse’s eyes on me, and I never went there again at night._

..::..

“Roland, please, tell me what’s wrong,” she pleas, placing her hand on his forearm. “Please, baby, tell me, it’s okay.”

He sighs, the shiver of tears in his trembling voice, and tells her, “Can I – can I come in?”

“Of course, baby, yes,” she nods, throwing a glance to the desert corridor and hushing him inside, closes the door and scoops him up into her arms. It’s a weird weight, one she’s not used to. She feels wetness on her shoulder, but she carries on until their reach her bed.

He looks shy, now – the tears have somehow stopped, as if those seconds in her embrace have settled something inside him. “I’m sorry, R’gina,” he tells her, and she’ll have none of it.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she reassures him. “What’s wrong?”

He bites his lower lip and looks away – she resists the impulse of urge him again, and instead, she lets him have his time. Until, finally, he speaks. “It’s – it’s Maddie,” he says, still not meeting her eyes.

Regina nods, even if she doesn’t understand. She waits.

“M-maddie told me a bad thing, and – and I wanted to go to D-daddy, but he’s away, and – Granny is asleep near the fireplace and – I didn’t know where to go, I’m – I’m sorry, Regina!”

“Shh, it’s okay, don’t worry,” she rushes to reassure him, before he lets sobs wrack him again. She does what’s instinctual – and she draws him into a hug, her arms curling around him, her cheek placed above his hair.

He’s so tiny, she thinks, and it isn’t fair that he’s crying at three in the morning next to _her_ of all people. It isn’t fair to him, because she’s not the one he should be going to – a near stranger, he should have someone better than her. He cries again, so Regina starts rocking them gently, her hand rubbing on his back. He’s wetting her nightgown, but it’s okay, if it’s what he needs.

“Do you want to tell me what Maddie said to you?” she whispers gently, when it seems to her that his heart-wrecking tears have transformed into quiet sighs.

He lifts his head to look at her, distancing himself slightly from her arms, and nods. “But promise you won’t get mad.”

Regina raises an eyebrow, because how is it possible, that this child is crying and yet he tries to protect Maddie? Still, she nods. She’ll decide later if it’s worth it to break the promise for his own sake. Roland looks like he has to force himself to talk, so she stays silent and waits until he feels like it’s okay to open up.

“Maddie told me – ” he starts, then stops, holding his breath for a moment. “I was scared of the storm, but just a little, because I know it’s just rain, Daddy told me,” he says, and she smiles at his display of bravery. “So I was in my room and I saw that she was coming upstairs with some milk because she always does that when she’s hungry during the night… and I asked her if she could come and read to me like Daddy does because then I feel better,” he murmurs, like he’s ashamed.

“And she told me that I don’t know how lucky I am because I still have Daddy and the other children have no one for them during the storms and – ” he bobs his chin down, with a watery little sound, his hand goes up in a curled fist to scratch his eyes. An effort not to cry again.

“ – and she told me – she said I’m a spoilt brat and then I asked what it means…”

Regina feels a wave of fresh rage in her chest, like a iron cascade of bitterness, and it takes all of her strength not to interrupt him. Roland isn’t looking at her, he’s looking down, staring at her sheets, his lower lip trembling.

“So… so Maddie told me that –” he sniffs, his eyes squeezing closed, and his tears starting again. “She told me that her mom taught her many words and maybe I’d know what it – it means if I still had a mom.”

Now he’s crying again, sobbing between words, and Regina’s fingers itch to reach to him, her heart thumping, her eyes watering as well. “So I – I told her to go away, and I thought about my mom and – R’gina, I don’t remember my mom,” he breathes, “why is it that everyone k-knows their mom and I – I don’t?”

She feels a tear escaping her eyes as well, as she watches him cry, she takes his hand – and Roland hugs her again, tight, he cries, she can only hold him as her own tears wet his hair. _I wanna know my mom_ , he mumbles into her chest. So she whispers the only resolution she can think of – _do you want to stay with me, tonight?_

And Roland nods, curled into her embrace, he doesn’t leave her as she gently pulls him down on the bed, draws a blanket above them and whispers calm words until his sobs sustain and calm down. “It’s okay, baby,” she murmurs. “It’s alright, don’t worry, it’s okay.” She feels him nod, he’s more calm, but she still has this need to do something for him. To say something better than empty words.

“I know it isn’t fair, Roland,” she starts. “But, can I tell you a secret?”

“A secret?” he peeps up to meet her eyes, wonder painted on his face.

“Yes, a secret,” Regina tells him. “I don’t have a mom anymore, just like you,” she says, and it’s not exactly true, she has a mother, in theory, but her mother has yet to be born…

“Really?” Roland whispers. “And you’re not sad?”

Regina ponders what to tell him – that you can’t be _that_ sad if your mother was a living nightmare… but she settles for something more child-friendly.  “I… yes, I miss her a bit, I suppose… but anyway I know that your mama wouldn’t want you to be sad. She is always here, you know,” Regina lifts a hand and presses her palm near his heart. “She’s always watching over you and caring for you, even if you don’t see her.”

“But…” his voice trembles, and Regina prays he won’t cry again. “But I still haven’t a mama to teach me the difficult words, R’gina…”

She sighs, and presses a kiss on his hair. “You have a lot of people to teach you things, baby. Your Daddy, Granny, Ruby… even me, if you want.”

“Really?” he’s still uncertain, so she holds him tighter and whispers, _Really_.

She feels some sort of… annoyance, right now. Of course, it’s buried under many layers of affection for this poor boy, but it’s there.  
It’s not her job, this one, it would be Robin’s duty to tell those things to his son. To care for him and stay with him during thunderstorms, and he isn’t here. She asks herself nearly every day, _where the hell is he?_  
When he comes to the Orphanage, he never stays for long. Mrs. Lucas seems to be okay with it, simply takes care of the children without further questioning. If he had to keep Regina locked up for days, when he thought she was a threat for the children, why isn’t he here more often with said children?

Roland is still silent, until she thinks he’s asleep, except he isn’t. He says, his voice low, _can_ _you tell me a story?_

“I don’t – know many stories, honey,” she answers. His resigned sigh – that tonight, no one is here to take care of him – it hits her, and so she proposes something else. “But… would you like me to sing?”

She feels him nod. So her exhausted, drained brain jumps into action, and she starts murmuring the rhythmic words of a song that doesn’t exist yet. But this, Roland doesn’t know.

_“Somewhere, over the rainbow,_   
_way up high –_   
_there's a land that I've heard of,_   
_once in a lullaby._   
_Somewhere, over the rainbow,_   
_skies are blue –_   
_and the dreams that you dare to dream,_   
_really, do come true.”_

His breaths slow down, she feels it, he relaxes against her. His little body is somehow comforting – it’s so peaceful, now, the storm has calmed down, she feels her eyes growing heavier.

..::..

_I realize I haven’t explained much about my life at the Orphanage until that moment. If I am correct, I left it at when I tried the cracked mirror, in March._

_The children were about a dozen, including Roland and Henry. After a while I had learned all their names. Then, there were Mrs. Lucas – whom I had been allowed to call Granny when Henry had insisted – and Ruby. I had seen, sporadically, one or two of Robin’s friends. They never stayed for long, never for dinner, always locked in his office._

_Of course, there was the mysterious woman I got a glimpse of, on that famous day. I still hadn’t met her. I had some clue about her name – which was always pronounced with some sort of reverence._

_During the day, I mostly helped out Granny with the children. This included every daily activity, such as baths and meals and… keeping them quiet, I suppose. This was an activity which required an authoritarian figure, and Granny was just that – stern, but loving. I found out that they listened to me, too. I think they were so starved for human affection, that they liked the moments where I would sit on the ground and read them something._

_Still, it wasn’t my place. After some time, I realized I missed something in my life. A purpose. Now that I couldn’t really go home, I was missing the time in the hospital more than I_ _could imagine._

..::..

When she wakes up, the following day, it’s breaking dawn and Roland is still asleep, curled up against her chest. She inhales slowly his scent, of sun and honey, that is so different and has something so similar to his father’s.

_So much for not getting attached to them_ , she thinks.

She has come a long way, since February. She has bonded with Ruby the first time she had her period in 1939, when she had to ask for whatever sort of pad they used there. (It’s a prototype of the things she’s used to, but not that bad. Discovering someone uses Lysol for contraception has surprised her, though.)

Henry, of course, is her favorite person here. He’s so curious, so intelligent and brilliant, he tries to teach how to read to the youngest orphans, and he’s the one she goes to when she feels sad or misses home. He doesn’t ask. He just hugs her.

Granny is another story – Granny didn’t trust her, at first. But given that she works a lot, and is curious about these day’s medicine, and knows how to make a mean apple pie, Granny has somehow tolerated her first, and then approved her presence in the house. Regina’s ideas are, maybe, a little… too feminist for these times. She has to hold her opinions back a lot of times, and she thinks Granny considers weird she isn’t married and she isn’t searching for a husband.

So, the fact that Robin is the most mysterious of her housemates is somehow an understatement.

And she finds said man asleep in a chair, in her room, and dawn has yet to come.

Robin.

He looks tired, she thinks. Has blue shadows under his eyes, and – _oh_ – a nasty bruise on the side of his forehead. Her whisper, _Robin!_ , is quiet but sufficiently loud to wake him. He mustn’t have slept for long then.

“Regina?” he says, a bit too loud for her taste, so she rushes to hush him, motioning at Roland. He looks at his son, and his eyes close painfully, as if he’s actually saddened by the sight. “He’s alright,” he exhales.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, I – I just…” he opens his eyes, looks at her and sighs. “I just had to see – I fell asleep watching him, I should have – I just wanted to make sure he was alright, I can – ”

“Hey,” she murmurs, her hand going to find his. “Don’t worry, he’s okay.”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “Regina, can I… talk to you? Now? Like… is it alright if we go downstairs?”

“Oh, uh, n-now?” she stutters, taken aback from this new turn of events. “Yes, I guess – just – let me find something to wear, first.”

..::..

He meets her in the kitchen, holding two cups of steaming tea. He motions for outside, and although it has rained all night, the sun has yet to rise, but there’s a lingering humidity in the air and it’s not entirely unpleasant. So Regina wraps her cardigan around herself and follows him to the magnolia tree – the bench underneath is soaked, but he’s brought a sort of coverage for them to sit on.

There’s silence, at first. She sips on her tea, uncertain about what to say, thinking he should start with his words first.

It’s so quiet, here. The birds have yet to start chirping, a soft breeze runs through her hair and the tree’s branches.

“So…” she starts, tentatively, because why has he brought her here if he doesn’t want to talk?

“Yes,” he answers. She glances at him, he’s still holding an untouched cup between his hands. “I’m sorry, for earlier,” he tells her. “I shouldn’t have come in like that.”

“Yes,” she says, a bit coldly. It was easy to comfort him while she still was in the dazed state of after sleep, but now she finds out she’s actually pissed at him. It’s no use, to come and find your son when he’s been taken care of by another person, almost a stranger, even after these months. “What is happening to you, Robin?”

He turns his head to watch her, incredulous, surprised by the sharpness of her tone. “Excuse me?”

Regina shakes her head, her fingers clinging at the mug. She takes another sip, to gain time and think of an educate answer. “Do you want me to be honest with you?”

“Please.”

She sighs, diverting her eyes from him, and starts looking at a bush of roses before speaking. “I think… you’ve lost track of your life. I’m sorry, I know it isn’t my place…”

“Regina, I promise,” he interrupts. “I won’t get offended, just tell me.”

“Okay,” she exhales. “So, your son came to my room last night, crying because he’s been practically bullied by a kid here… Maddie, he said. And he asked me about his mother, he said you’re never here, and, Robin, he’s right. You are here, but you are not, I barely know you… hell, I know Ruby better than I know you, and I’m sure you’ve your damn good reasons to be away from months, and I’m not sure I want to know them, and… the kids need someone to guide them, Robin!” she dares to turn towards him, clenching a fist. “Granny is doing a pretty good job, but what if she’s not there? They need a purpose, they need to study, or somewhere to play, they need someone to be their parent, a guide!”

He opens his mouth to say something, but she isn’t finished. “I mean, I tried to stay out of this, but I can’t. You let me live here, and I tried to stay out of this, it’s not my business, but I see what happens every day, I’m here more than you are, and I’m worried. No – not just worried, I’m _angry_. Because the man who locked me in a room for _days_ , to protect the children from a non-existent threat, is now ignoring the very same children, and it makes me angry. The man who, I think, is in danger more often than not – look at that bruise on your head, for god’s sake – has a son here and leaves him so often, he makes me angry.”

She’s breathing faster now, the words that she has kept inside for months pouring out in a unique flow of rage. She turns her head again to the bush of roses, her hands curling around the mug. Robin stays silent, and Regina closes her eyes, her back going to rest against the bench’s backrest and soaking her cardigan, but it doesn’t matter. He will kick her out? Fine. She can’t live in this mess, seeing children grow up like this, and their supposed custodian who acts like it doesn’t concern him.

“Regina…” he murmurs. He lets out a low sigh, but she doesn’t look at him, afraid of what she could see in his eyes. “You’re right.”

“W-what?” now she turns, meets his eyes, and doesn’t find rage but a tranquil resignation. “But I thought…”

“No, you _are_ right,” he tells her. He reaches out for her hand, and she takes his, curls her own around his warmth. “Thanks for telling me this.”

“But… why… if you know you’re wrong, why are you doing it?”

He shakes his head, a shadow of a smile on his lips. “Let’s say… I’ve been such a fool, Regina,” he says. “I thought I would be best out there, fighting my own battles, when I had the greatest of them all right here,” he motions at the building with his chin.

“What do you mean, your battles?”

He shifts, uncomfortable with her question, and squeezes her hand. “You don’t need to worry about it for now,” he says. “I think we will find out soon enough…”

“You know,” she murmurs. “I would feel much better if you just told me _something_ , for a change.”

To her surprise, he smiles. “Do you see?” he lifts the hand that holds his mug. “I keep doing wrong to you, to everyone. I’m just… used to being secretive, but that’s not an excuse.”

“It’s not,” she agrees. “I understand you, though. I… I have my secrets, you know.”

He tilts his head. “I should be worried.” It’s not a question, and that sends shivers through Regina’s heart. It’s been… months, since she’s had a conversation like this one.

..::..

_“Regina.”_

_She followed me as I left the hospital, with a scowl on her face. I turned, placing my hand on my hips. “Kathryn. What is it?”_

_She neared me, taking my hand, “I’m worried about you, you know?” she said, “what’s going on?”_

_“What do you mean, you are worried?” I laughed, but my laugh had no amusement in it. “I’m fine.”_

_“Is it about your husband?”_

_I felt tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, and left her hand. “Kathryn, I…”_

_“It’s okay,” she looked at me sadly. “I’m your friend. You can tell me.”_

_She brought me at our favorite café, after that, and listened to me for two hours. I needed that. I hadn’t realize what loneliness can do to a soul._

..::..

“Robin, I…” she leaves his hand, and feels ashamed. She’s just lectured this man for not being there for the children, when she has made no less damage herself. She has bonded with Henry and Roland and others, she has taken a role in the house without setting boundaries, she is a dead weight and feels like she’s doing nothing to repay the people who are letting her stay here.

Robin doesn’t take her hand, but looks at her. “I don’t want to – I don’t _need_ to know your secrets, Regina,” he tells her, “as long as they’re not dangerous –”

“No…”

“– they’re yours to keep,” he says. “But I promise, I – I can’t tell you, I’m sorry, for now, but I want you to know that… I’ll stay, from now on. I was in your room – because I needed to see my son, whom, despite what you may think, I missed immensely. But my duty has ended, and I promise, I… I will try to be better, for the kids. I’ll stay. I will make this place a better place.”

She nods, at loss for words, watching as the first sunrays filter through the tree branches. And then the words come, in the most natural of ways.

“I’ll help you.”


	9. The She-Doctor

\- 9 - 

**The She-Doctor**

 

_I know, everybody on this island_   
_has a role on this island_   
_so maybe I can roll with mine_

.

When Regina gets her first phone call, she’s in the new shower that’s been installed a week ago.

For the kids, it has been a wonderful day, the day of the shower. They have opened their mouths in astonishment, entranced by this new technological feature. It has hit her, how these children can be in awe when put in front of something new, undiscovered, whereas Regina was feeling… relieved. She has waited to be alone to try it, and has welcomed the familiar spray of water with a content sigh. She has missed it, the feeling of almost-hot water like a cascade, and knowing she won’t have to endure baths in the tub anymore.

So today she has indulged in another shower, and it’s too good, she’s actually dreading the moment she’ll have to leave. And she hears little Anya’s voice from outside, picking up the telephone in Robin’s study and answering, just like they’ve all been instructed to do, “Hello, this is Sherwood, with whom do you want to speak?”

She has just relaxed back against the cold tiles of the shower when she hears, _Miss Reginaaa, it’s for you!_

Anya says, _Wait a moment, I’ll go and find her!_ and she rushes down the corridor towards the bathroom. Regina has soap all over her hair, and tells her, “Darling, what is it?”

“Telephone for you! It’s a lady from the hospital,” she answers from behind the door.

Her heart skips a beat, and she shuts the water faucet to hear better. “The hospital?”

But Anya has already gone to retrieve the phone. She sighs, worry coursing through her veins, because Robin is somewhere with a friend today, and what if something happened? But it’s weird, they wouldn’t have asked for _her_ …

“Hello?” she answers a moment later. Her skin is dripping drops of water all over the floor, and she tries to adjust the towel around her body.

“Regina? This is Belle French from the Angels Hospital – I was the nurse who took care of – ”

“ – my arm, yes, I know,” she says. “Is something wrong? What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Belle reassures her. “But I was wondering if you’d like to meet? There’s something I wish to discuss with you.”

“Oh – uhm, okay,” she answers, surprised. “That’s… unexpected. When do you want to meet?”

“My shift is over at five today,” Belle says, talking quickly now. “Meet me outside of the hospital? Thank you, Regina.”

“Alright – you’re – ” she tries to say, but the call has ended, the phone giving back an empty sound, “ – welcome,” she sighs.

As she carefully hangs the receiver, she wonders. She practically hasn’t spoken at all with Belle, and it’s so weird for her to get a phone call here. Almost nobody outside of the Orphanage knows her, and she’s kept a low profile. It’s the end of June, now, the war is about to start. There’s been some talk of it – whispers, on the streets, once at the hairdresser she went to with Ruby. But it’s all a theoretical thought, between the Londoners, and she wishes to know what it’s like to be in the Army – like Robin is – to see if they actually know _something_.

She pads towards the bathroom, leaving a trail of droplets like a trail, and keeps wondering about Belle and their meeting.

..::..

She arrives to the hospital earlier, after making up an excuse for Granny. So she waits, from half past four, kicking herself because she’s too early, and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. So she watches, holding her purse, wishing it was cold to hug herself with a black coat and become invisible, to melt with the wall behind her. When there’s seven minutes left, she sees a man coming out – he’s tall and bald, and she especially notices her because he glares. It isn’t just the passing glance of a man who has seen a pretty woman, it’s the stare she has seen multiple times in her life. The man who wants something. Something _very_ clear.

She averts her gaze, fixates it on the door of the hospital, praying for Belle to hurry and swipe her away from there. The man, however, crosses the road, going straight towards her. “Do you need any help, miss? Are you lost?”

He’s taller than she is – she looks up, meets his eyes, and smiles politely. He seems… slimy. There is something unsettling with the way he’s looking at her, his eyes roaming her body, hoping not to be noticed. “No, thank you,” she answers, “I’m just waiting for a friend, she works at the hospital.”

The man inflates his chest, proudly, and nods. “Oh, I see. I work there myself,” he says, a little haughtily. “Doctor Leopold Blanchard, I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss…?”

“Mills – Regina Mills,” she tells him, frowning when he lifts the hand she’s offering and kisses her knuckles. “Nice to meet you too, but – alas, I’ve just seen my friend – ”

Belle is, indeed, crossing the street, a weird expression on her face.

“Nurse French, what a coincidence _you_ are the infamous friend,” he tells Belle, who tugs up a corner of her lips in a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I suppose so, sir,” she says. Regina doesn’t miss the way her eyes dart towards the street as if she wants to escape.

“That’s a shame,” Leopold tells Regina. “I was hoping to steal you for myself…”

Regina doesn’t answer right away, processing what he’s just said – his _voice_ when he has said it – and nods curtly. “Well that’s flattering, but we really should get going,” she says. “It was nice to meet you, sir.”

Belle looks relieved, as Regina takes her arm and leads her away without sparing him a second glance. She’s used to deal with men like him – not that this makes the experience become pleasant. She slides into the first café she can find, and drags Belle with her.

“Sorry about that,” Belle says, in an apologetic voice. “He’s a bit… You dealt with him splendidly.”

Regina slips out of her cardigan, sitting at the wobbly chair of a small table. “I’m used to guys like him, unfortunately,” she dismisses. “But what is it that you wanted to talk me about?”

Belle shifts uncomfortably and sits next to her. “Well…”

..::..

“A job?”

Robin places the cup of tea in front of her, and sits heavily on the chair. They’re in the kitchen, the house is silent, the kids are – should be – asleep.

“I don’t know if I will take it,” she says quietly. “I mean, I… miss my job, I really do. But Belle said the hospital is not really… fond of female doctors.”

“And you’d be a… nurse?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “But I haven’t studied for years just to let some bossy big shot explain to me how to use a syringe.” He looks puzzled, she notices when she lifts her eyes. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he shakes his head, but she can sense he’s not telling her the truth. “I… I’ve never met someone quite like you, that’s all.”

Regina tilts her head, her hand curling around the cup of tea. “Like me… how?”

“You’re… passionate, you’re not afraid of speaking for what you believe in,” he explains. Her heart swells a little, she hides a smile with a sip of tea. “You are so different from… my late wife.”

“Tell me about her,” she asks, with a sudden urge to know. From _him_ , not from Granny or an old diary.

He looks down, eyes fixated on the table, and nods. Gulps, slowly. “Marian was… a kind spirit. She was mellow, a tranquil woman, she almost never got angry, but when she did… god, it was a sight. She was not… weak. Just calm, and poised, and wise, unafraid to put me on the right track. I was so different, before meeting her. And she has loved Roland so much… sometimes I think those were the best and worst weeks of her life.”His eyes have started to tear up, so she leaves the cup to take his hand, and he squeezes it gratefully. “But… your turn. Tell me about your husband.”  

Well… that was to be expected, she thinks. Regina looks at him, his kind eyes awaiting her answer, and starts. “Daniel is… was,” she corrects, taking a deep breath, her heart breaking a little, “he… I miss him so much,” she tells him – and feels, horrified, tears starting to well in her eyes. “He was a soldier, during the… war. But he died later, five years ago, he… died in a fire.” The lies sting, her eyes falling down. Truth is, losing Daniel is a lot fresher than five years ago, and she may not have a way to go home, but she hasn’t given up yet.

“But you still wear his ring?”

His question takes her by surprise. “Yes,” she murmurs, her finger toying with the ring, making it turn. “I guess I’m not… resigned to the idea, to have lost him. I guess I still think I can come back to him, someday.”

“More like… he can come back to you.”

Her gaze darts up to find his, and she amends her mistake. “Yes, exactly.” Why is it so difficult to keep her lies straight with him? She has already slipped twice, when will she learn?

“And… do you ever think it’s time to move on?” She widens her eyes, and he quickly shakes his head. “I didn’t… mean to offend you, if I did, I’m…”

“No, you didn’t,” she tangles their fingers together, finding out she rather likes the feeling of his hand in hers. It’s comforting. “And… yes, I thought about it… but he was away for most of the year, and our marriage was… but I don’t really know why I’m telling you this,” she smiles through tears, suddenly sad, because their marriage may have had its issues but she misses him.

Robin laughs softly. “Because I like to think I’m… your friend, at least a bit, after those months.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I don’t… I enjoy having someone who understands about this kind of pain, you know… but it’s still hard.”

He nods, wordlessly. “We will talk more,” he promises. “Until the pain goes away.”

Regina nods back, wishing it was true.

..::..

In July, she meets some of Robin’s friends – his best man John, who must share that job and that air of secrecy. Even so, he’s welcoming and kind with her, he calls her _Robin’s mystery girl_ , and makes her blush. She meets Jake, a quick boy of twenty who is Henry’s idol – just as much as Henry is Roland’s – and Jake tells her he’s American too, that it’s nice to meet a fellow countrywoman.

Robin starts staying home some more. His friends come and go, bringing paperwork and mysterious briefcases, and she once catches sight of a map splayed on his desk before John closes the door. There are phone calls in the middle of the night, but she never asks. Maybe there are things he can’t tell her. Maybe she shouldn’t know, really. This is not a game, she’s come to accept it more and more. If she’s to stay – for an undetermined time, she will have to learn how to play.

Her nightmares get more frequent. They are not horrific – the kind of stuff that makes her wake up screaming. They are subtle, slithering in her psyche, she opens her eyes with a veil of sweat on her forehead, images fading away. There is blue and black, in her dreams. There is a recurring swastika and a burned flag. And hands, everywhere, grabbing and pulling. Small bombs drop down in white parachutes, of the kind she’s seen in movies.

Whispers behind closed doors.

She thinks she’s going crazy. Knowing is a curse, she’d give anything to have the children’s blissful ignorance about the countdown that is going to tear their lives apart. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to outlive the war, and for sure, they won’t emerge unscathed. Someone will not survive.

Her sour mood reflects on her actions. She’s been a fairly good actress about her lies – almost convincing herself that she’s the American Doctor Regina Mills and her husband died in the First World War, leaving her with nothing, that she came to London in search of a better life. Her real past is painfully there, in a corner of her mind. Maybe, under torture she would let it out.

She’s not the only one to be affected by the upcoming future. The adults in the Orphanage are too, she often catches Granny staring blankly into space. Ruby is more jittery. Ashley, the girl who helps out with the cleaning and the kids – hired after a long discussion Regina had with Robin – she’s more quiet than when she’s first met her, two months after her arrival. Her fiancé Thomas, who’s the newfound gardener, often speaks with Robin behind corners, in hushed tones, as if he _knows_.

Robin himself is on edge. He’s always surrounded with paperwork, closed in his study, always gloomy, worried, except for when he’s with the children. It seems like there is something in particular that bothers him, maybe of bureaucratic matters. It seems weird that he’s opened up with her about Marian, but he’s not told her about his current troubles. She’s tired of pushing him, though. He will talk when he’s ready – sure as hell she will not talk, not now not ever, about her biggest secret.

..::..

One day, they arrange for a general houseclean, with the children’s help, and he’s particularly snappy. Regina has caught, this morning at breakfast, a whiff of that perfume – the mysterious woman’s perfume, she has sensed it when she had to place a plate in front of Robin. At this point, considered what she knows – the secrecy, the mystery – she wonders if the woman is his lover: she came during the night, left before dawn, and probably, he’s not even slept.

The lack of sleep combined with a dozen of lively kids and his sour mood are going to be a lethal mix today, and Regina muses that at some point he will break, like a too-stretched rubber band.

He breaks in the afternoon, when they’re in the drawing room and little Lucy accidentally breaks a little compact mirror in her haste to dust it. The sound of shattering glass makes everyone freeze, and Regina turns slowly to look at Robin, who’s staring at the mirror with wide eyes. Lucy withdraws, fear in her eyes, with a trembling _I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!_

She looks close to tears, so Regina rushes in her direction, kneels down and whispers hurriedly _It’s okay, baby, it’s okay_. Lucy is straight up crying now. She throws her arm around her neck, weeps, but in the meanwhile Robin is storming out of the room, Roland is nearing her and Lucy, Henry looks like he wants to go after Robin. Regina calls him, “Henry! Come here and take care of Lucy, please.”

She untangles herself from the little girl’s arms, leaves her with the others and follows Robin, before he can do something stupid.

He’s not far – just around the corner, breathing heavily, his back turned in her direction. She slows down, her hand goes up to his shoulder. “Robin,” she says, calm, “are you alright?”

“She broke it.”

His voice is low, sounds weird and angry. Regina sees his hand shaking, and feels his pure anger hitting her like a wave. “It was – Marian’s, and now it’s gone.”

“She didn’t mean to. She’s just a child – ”

“Oh, please!” he turns towards her, she takes a step back, because he’s just furious. She thought he was just hurt, but… this is worse. “Don’t you dare defend her, Regina! You don’t know how I feel!”

“I know exactly how you feel, or you just forgot everything I told you last night?” she raises her voice, her anger starting to seep out. “You’re acting like an idiot!”

“Regina?”

It’s Henry’s voice, almost timid, as if he’s scared of interrupting them. Regina looks at Robin who has averted his gaze, and then at Henry. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“It’s… I’m sorry, Roland hurt himself by accident and…”

“What?” Robin turns his head, his anger almost instantly dissipated as Regina gasps and starts walking towards the drawing room. “What… Roland, what happened?”

There is blood on the carpet, and Roland crouched down and surrounded by some of the kids, sadness in his eyes, as he holds his injured hand with the other one and weeps silently. “S-sorry, Daddy,” he sobs, “I – I didn’t mean to, b-but Lucy was crying and I – I wanted to patch up the mirror so she doesn’t cry anymore,” he stares down sadly, the adults already crouching  next to him.

Robin doesn’t say anything, but turns Roland’s hand to see the cut – the back of his hand is sliced, with the dangerous goofiness of a child who wanted to do a good deed. “Shit,” he curses. “Granny’s away today, we have to take him to the hospital.”

“No,” Regina cuts in. “Henry, bring me the medical aid kit, please – Anya, make everyone exit this room; Charles, help Henry watch the others. I can do this, there’s no need for the hospital.”

She’s still angry with Robin, but her anger seems to have subsided to a slow pulse in a corner, as she focuses on Roland. Robin just goes with her decision and holds his son, shushing him when he protests against the alcohol burning his wound and her – even gentle – touch on the shattered fragments.

It’s a slow work, monotonous, she tries to be as gentle as possible. The mirror has shattered in one larger piece and an handful of smaller ones, but the sandy-like fragments are the difficult ones, and she can’t leave them in. Then, she has to stitch the cut, and Roland moans in pain, but Robin promises him sugary treats afterwards.

She meets Robin’s eyes, every now and then, a current of unsaid between them – as in _We will talk later_ and _You’ve acted like a moron_ and _I’m sorry for your son_. She will make sure to tell him, but for now she focuses, and hopes the cut will heal, and kisses Roland’s forehead when she’s done.

She swiftly gets up from the floor, her joints protesting about the uncomfortable position, and walks towards the door, the medical kit in hand, when Robin’s voice comes.

“Regina?”

She turns, a hand on the knob. “Yes?”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, a glance to the mop of curly hair in his lap. “And…” his gaze lifts to meet hers. “Take that job.”


End file.
